


Devoted

by spoilersweetie



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Dubious Consent, Emotional Abuse, F/F, First Time, dark doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2019-12-29 21:02:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18301892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoilersweetie/pseuds/spoilersweetie
Summary: Devote: to give all of something, especially your time, effort, or love, or yourself, to something you believe in or to a person





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please note: this is slightly darker than my other 13/Yaz fics, and the sex scenes in this story venture into slightly dubious consent territory because of the particular dynamic between them. Exploring that is the purpose of this story so if reading that kind of thing is not for you please give this one a miss.

The Tardis doors shut with a soft click behind Ryan, the last one of the four through, as if the Tardis itself had picked up on the solemn mood amongst her travellers and daren’t make too much noise. Knowing how sentient the ship was by now, Yaz thought she probably had.

She takes off with a soft wheeze of her engines, and then stills a few moments later without much of a jolt as the Doctor flips down a lever and presses a button to park them.

Yaz watches their pilot worriedly as she taps in a few things on the controls then pauses to shove a hand wearily through her short blonde hair.

“You should all get some rest,” she mumbles, avoiding everyone’s eyes. “I’m - I’ll…” She doesn’t finish what she’d been going to say, trailing off and instead opting for turning on her heel and walking from the room.

Yaz exchanges glances with Ryan and Graham. It had been a particularly trying day for all of them, but especially the Doctor.

“She alright?” Ryan says.

“She will be,” Graham claps him on the shoulder. “You know the Doc. She’s stronger than the lot of us put together. How about some dinner? Dunno about you two but I’m famished.”

Ryan mumbles an agreement and starts off in the direction of the kitchen after Graham, but Yaz hesitates, eyeing the corridor the Doctor had disappeared down.

“I… think I’m gonna go make sure she’s alright. Not really that hungry anyway.”

“You sure? I can make extra and stick some in the fridge for you?” Graham offers kindly and she smiles.

“No thanks, I’m alright. See you tomorrow?”

They exchange good nights and Yaz makes in the opposite direction. She has a inkling as to where the Doctor may have skulked off too, and hopes she’ll be able to find the little library/study she seems to like to frequent again without too much trouble.

She wraps her arms around herself as she walks, feeling chilly despite the pleasant temperature of the Tardis. It probably had something to do with the screams still ringing in her ears, the sickening smell of burning wood mixed with flesh lingering in her nostrils…

It was supposed to have been a fun trip. ‘Team Tardis bonding time’, the Doctor had dubbed it, telling them excitedly on the way about the planet where every plant was edible and the trees seemed to sing in the wind.

It hadn’t been where they’d ended up. Instead, the Tardis had landed them in the middle of what became fast apparent was an illegal intergalactic slave auction, not unsurprisingly run by forty-third century humans auctioning off their own kind.

The Doctor had been so furious that the way she’d threatened the man who was running it to shut everything down had sent chills down Yaz’s spine. He hadn’t seemed perturbed, telling her that the building holding all the ‘lots’ as he’d referred to them (Graham had nearly hit him), had been rigged with explosives in case of the event of the authorities finding them, and if the Doctor didn’t destroy the recordings she’d made of the auction he would blow the whole thing.

The Doctor had called his bluff. It turned out he hadn’t been lying.

Yasmin’s ears are still ringing from the blast, and she feels sick to her very stomach at the thought of all the lives that had been lost.

The door to the Doctor’s study is open, a soft yellow glow from the dim light within illuminating the end of the corridor. When she reaches the threshold and peers inside she can see the Doctor, her back to her as she bends over the desk, coat sleeves rolled up and muttering at whatever she’s tinkering with.

“Hey.” Yaz says tentatively, knocking on the open door lightly with her knuckles.

The Doctor doesn’t turn to regard her, but Yaz notices her shoulders visibly tense.

“Yaz.” She says sounding surprised, still without turning. “Are… you alright?”

Yaz steps cautiously into the room. “I wanted to ask you the same thing.”

“I’m fine,” she replies too quickly.

She closes the door softly behind her. “What you doing?”

The Doctor drops something to the desk with a clatter and a sound of annoyance.

“I need to extend the range,” she mutters, and when Yaz is close enough to peer over her shoulder she sees her dismantled sonic scattered across the desk. “That can be the only explanation for the why I didn’t detect the explosives. They must have been out of range… because I _did_ scan the building Yaz,” she says, turning to face her with desperate eyes, shoving a stressed hand through her hair, “I scanned it and it came up with nothing - otherwise I _never_ would have risked -”

“Hey, Doctor,” Yaz interrupts her gently with a hand on her arm. “What happened today -”

“What happened today was I made a mistake. A huge, _stupid_ , _terrible_ mistake that cost hundreds of lives,” her voice is quiet but there is a low edge to it, an edge that Yaz hasn’t heard from her before. She swallows.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she says firmly, “You didn’t kill those people Doctor.”

“I may as well have.”

“No,” she shakes her head, “the man who pressed the button was the one who murdered them. You were trying to save them. You can’t blame yourself.”

Her silence suggests that she doesn’t believe her, and a moment later she spins and sweeps everything off the desk with an angry growl, sending the scattered pieces of her sonic, books, papers and tools crashing to the floor so suddenly it makes Yaz jump backwards. She seizes a paper weight that missed her attack and hurls it at a bookcase. It smashes into pieces.

“Leave,” She says quietly without turning to look at Yaz.

Yaz can only stare at her back, her small form heaving, blonde head bowed.

“Doctor...” she tries gently, taking a step forward.

“Leave me Yaz!” The Doctor demands a bit louder. “I need to be alone.”

Her mood has started Yaz, she’s not going to deny that it’s a little unsettling to see such a different side to the bouncing cheerful woman she’s come to - ... know - but she’s her friend. And Yaz doesn’t turn her back on the people she cares about when they need her.

“I’m not leaving you alone like this,” she says firmly. “I’m with you always Doctor - I mean that. I’m here for you - whatever you need…”

“What I _need_ is to erase what happened today, to go back and not make such a _stupid_ mistake but I _can’t_ because I’ve already been there and it’s happened and if I went back and stopped it then I wouldn’t know to go back in the first place and that’s just the _stupid_ , frustrating laws of time!” Her knuckles are white as she grips the edge of the desk and for a second Yaz thinks she may upend the whole thing.

She swallows again, reaches out to place a hand on her shoulder but decides against it, leaving it hovering in the air. “I know,” she says softly, and the Doctor spins to face her again. “But you can’t blame yourself -”

“Three hundred people, Yaz!” She yells, her voice cracking on her name, “Three hundred lives and futures and families... gone. Destroyed because of me.”

“It’s not because of you -“

“It is because of me!” She yells back. “It’s always…” her voice drops suddenly to a whisper, “always because of me...” She looks down, and Yaz can’t stop herself from reaching out to touch her this time, hand gently cupping her face and thumb catching the tear that slips down her cheek.

“Doctor,” she tries again, “You were trying to save them. That’s _always_ what you’re trying to do. And you do - you save so many lives and you care so much about every single one and that’s why I -” she cuts herself off, quickly choking back an accidental confession of her feelings that has no place in an atmosphere of mourning. “Why you’re so amazing. I meant what I said before,” she tells her softly, thumb stroking her cheek. “You’re the best person I’ve ever met.”

She expects her to argue, to tell her again how everything had been her fault, and is surprised when she lifts her head to look at her in wonder.

“You really think that?” She sniffs.

“I _know_ that.”

“After everything you’ve seen -”

“I’ve only ever seen you try to do the right thing,” she cuts her off, hand dropping to rest on her shoulder. “And I know - today was _awful_ , and everything went wrong but who’s to say that if you’d made a different decision then it wouldn’t -”

Her words are cut off, suddenly and very, _very_ unexpectedly by the Doctor’s lips landing on her own.

She pulls away as quickly as she’d started, but doesn’t go far, eyes searching Yasmin’s own.

“Tell me again,” she utters quickly.

“Tell - huh?” Yaz stammers out, head spinning from the fact that the Doctor had _kissed_ her.

“Tell me what you said again,” she begs, gaze deep and intense.

“Umm -” Yaz frantically searches her brain through the haze of _the Doctor had kissed her_. “You’re… the best person I’ve ever met?”

That must have been right, because the Doctor seizes Yaz’s head, hands knotting into her hair, her kiss this time desperate and messy, the force of it sending Yaz stumbling back, hands clutching at the Doctor in shock.

God, she’d waited so long for this, and it’s finally happening in the last way she’d ever expected - but Yaz is too gone for her not to take it, parting her lips with a soft moan and kissing the Doctor back until her knees feel weak and her heart’s almost beating out of her chest.

“Yaz,” she pulls back to mumble against her lips, “my Yaz…”

Yaz’s heart soars at the words and she pulls her closer.

“It wasn’t your fault Doctor,” she whispers to her, lips brushing her own.

“I don’t want to talk about that,” she murmurs quickly back. “I just... please.”

Understanding that it’s a distraction she needs - an escape from the horrendous day and the horrors in her head, Yaz leans in to kiss her again, open mouths meeting and tongues stroking against each other.

The Doctor’s response is immediate, spinning Yaz in her arms and pressing her back against the desk behind them. Her hands shove her coat from her shoulders then yank at her jumper, breaking the kiss to pull it over her head. A little surprised at how fast this was escalating, Yaz feels her skin prickle from the cool air of the room - or possibly the Doctor’s lips raining searing kisses down the side of her neck and teeth scraping over her collarbone.

Her touch on her bare skin ignites a fire inside the pit of Yaz’s belly, and she feels an ache start to throb between her legs, a shock of arousal shoot through her when the Doctor’s thigh presses between them, her small hands cupping Yaz’s breasts and squeezing none-too-gently.

Yaz realises she should probably do something other than just clutch at the Doctor gasping for breath, and reaches up with trembling hands to push the Doctor’s own coat to the floor, fingers untucking her shirts and venturing tentatively to the warm skin beneath them. Her hands glide up as the Doctor yanks down the cup of her bra and take’s Yaz’s nipple into her open mouth. She gasps loudly, both at the sensation and the surprise of finding the Doctor without a bra beneath her shirts, fingers skating over bare ribs - but she doesn't have time for further exploration, finding herself hoisted suddenly up onto the desk with enough urgency to make her squeak in startlement. She has only a second to catch her breath before the Doctor pushes her onto her back and her frantic fingers yank at the fastenings of her jeans.

_Okay_ , Yaz thinks, _apparently this is happening, right now._ It’s not like she hadn’t imagined the situation once or twice (or maybe every other night since she’d known her), it’s just that she’d always envisioned her first time being a little less… rushed.

Her heart hammers as the Doctor hurriedly yanks the jeans down, fingers hooking into the top of her knickers taking those with her too, dragging the whole lot off her legs until she is completely bare before her save for her bra. The Doctor is moving over her now, pushing her knees apart and sliding a hand up over her thigh and it’s all happening so fast that Yaz feels a wave of panic grip her.

“Wait!” She gasps, pulling herself to sit up, hands pushing at the Doctor’s.

Hazel eyes wide with surprise meet hers, and then the Doctor pulls her hands from her thighs like she’d been burnt, holding them to her.

“You don’t want this,” she breathes, the words heavy with regret, eyes wide and filled with what Yaz quickly recognises as horrified guilt as they flicker over her bared form - Yaz finds herself quickly shaking her head.

“No! I mean yes - I mean no, I do. Of course I want this. I want you, Doctor.”

Relief is visible on her face. “You do?”

“Yes,” she says quickly, desperate to banish the self-loathing she can still see glimmers of in the Doctor’s eyes. “I just…” She flounders for an excuse, “I just wanted to kiss you again first…”

“Oh.” She relaxes further, and steps in close to Yaz again, hands pushing into her hair and mouth capturing hers in another deep kiss.

“I want you,” Yaz assures her when they part, words a whisper against the Doctor’s lips, banishing that last hint of insecurity in her eyes that Yaz can’t bear to see. She feels the Doctor's hand trail down her neck and over her chest, heading down between her parted thighs and she grips her shoulders, trying not to hold her breath at the first touch of someone else’s fingers sliding down into her slick folds.

She is rougher than Yaz had expected, pushing two, then three fingers straight inside her, and she gasps, tears stinging in the corners of her eyes as she feels herself stretch around the intrusion.

“God you feel so perfect,” the Doctor mutters hotly, and Yaz hides her face in her neck, not wanting her to see the tears in her eyes. “I need you. I need you so much.”

Yaz’s hearts sing at the words and she pushes her hips towards her, happy to take the pain if it’s what the Doctor needs.

“Then take me,” she breathes, knowing she would give this woman anything she asked for.

She starts to move her fingers within her, pushing them into her harder and harder, and Yaz bites down on her bottom lip. She’d been wet, thankfully, wetter than she’d ever been otherwise it would have been even more painful. As it is she feels the stretch of her inner walls as fingers move fast inside her, a dull ache that intensifies when she feels the Doctor work a fourth finger into her.

Overwhelmed by sensations wrapped with an edge of pain and having the Doctor _like this_ , Yaz can only clutch at her shoulders, head bowed by her neck as between them the Doctors fingers pump into her hard.

It’s nothing like she’d imagined, both of her first time being with someone intimately, and of being with the Doctor. But then she hadn’t imagined the Doctor could be the way she’d seen her tonight either - filled with so much anger but also vulnerability, furious with herself more than at the universe.

She feels her withdraw her fingers to rub at her clit, hard enough to make her legs shake and wetness rush from her anew. She grabs one of Yaz’s hands in her own and pulls it to her, unfastening her trousers and pushing Yaz’s hand down inside them desperately.

God she feels incredible; hot and slick and perfect, and Yaz wishes she had all the time in the world to revel in the feeling, to learn every beautiful inch of her but she knows that’s not what the Doctor needs right now. She rubs her steadily, her fingers faltering only briefly when the Doctor pushes back inside her.

Yaz’s body is wound tight, sweat coating her skin and thighs trembling as she clutches desperately at the Doctor; the way she is taking her hurts but still it’s not enough to stop her getting off. Yaz is surprised and a little embarrassed to realise that the pain seems only to intensify the build of pleasure inside her, and when the heel of her hand starts hitting her clit as she fucks her it’s only moments before she’s clenching around her, her name a strangled cry on her lips as she clutches at her shirts and lets the waves of pleasure take her.

The Doctors nails are digging into the skin of her hip, keeping her in place as she fucks her through her climax. She draws it out until Yaz almost begs her to stop and then she pulls out of her abruptly and presses her hand to Yaz’s own through her trousers, coaxing her fingers to slip quickly over her clit rubbing at her until the Doctor’s body gives a jolt and she makes a muffled grunt by Yaz’s ear, gasping a little as she pulls her hand away.

“Wow,” Yaz manages to whisper when the Doctor’s eyes find hers, and the Doctor gives her a half-smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, stepping back a bit and fastening her trousers.

“You look pretty when you come.”

Well. Those hadn’t been words she’d expected.

Yaz feels her cheeks flush aggressively, and drops her eyes, heat flooding through her body anew even as the words make something uneasy settle in her stomach.

“Oh,” she hears the Doctor mumble, “umm, I think you’re...” She trails off awkwardly and Yaz follows her gaze down to the red coating her fingers.

“Oh,” Yaz repeats, cheeks burning even more. “S-Sorry… it’s early.” She hasn’t the heart to tell her she’s not due around now at all.

She gives her a small ‘it’s fine’ smile, that drops quickly before she turns, apparently hunting for something to wipe her hand on, settling for the hanky she pulls from her coat pocket.

She throws it on afterwards, tucking her shirts in as she heads for the door.

Yaz’s heart drop as she realises what she’s doing, and she almost leaps from the desk to rush after her until she realises that she’s still mostly nude.

“I’ll uh - see you tomorrow yeah?”

Yaz is so shocked that by the time she finds her voice the door has closed softly behind the Doctor, leaving her alone, sore and confused.

_She’s gone?_

Tears immediately blur her vision and she blinks them away crossly, sliding off the desk and bending to grab her underwear and clothes, dressing quickly with trembling hands.

_Why did she leave? Did I do something wrong?_

She hadn’t known what she was doing but the Doctor had seemed to enjoy it - at least she’d certainly felt hot and wet beneath her fingers… what if it hadn’t been good for her? Maybe Yaz was supposed to have done more?

Yaz’s eyes fall on the scattered pieces of the Doctor’s sonic on the floor as she bends to retrieve her shoes and she pauses, suddenly remembering the scene that took place before and how distraught the Doctor had been - and _why_ they’d just done what they had. Why Yaz had let her.

She was upset, and traumatised, and it was selfish of Yaz to be thinking of her own feelings when the Doctor’s head was in such a dark place. She probably just wanted to be alone - she had told Yaz those very words when she’d first come to find her after all.

Swallowing down the uneasy feeling inside her, and brushing aside the idea of taking the disassembled sonic to her (she probably wouldn’t find her anyway and Yaz really doesn’t know what she would say), Yaz picks up her coat and heads towards her room with a shower and curling up in bed in mind.

Letting her clothes drop to the floor of her bathroom, Yaz twists her hair up into a knot on top of her head, too exhausted to bother with washing it, and steps into the shower, letting the hot water pour down over her for long minutes before she grabs the shower gel and starts washing. Her fingers carefully work soap between her legs, biting her lip at the tenderness there, and when she plucks the shower head from the holder to aim water to wash the soap away, it shocks her when her knees buckle as the water hits her over-sensitive clit and another wave of pleasure grips her.

Shakily finishing washing, she stumbles out of the shower and dries herself off before dragging on an old comfortable pair of pyjamas, and feeling too exhausted to do much else, climbs into bed beneath the duvet.

It’s a few minutes after laying down in bed in the dark that what had happened finally starts to sink in.

She’d been with the Doctor.

She’d had sex for the first time… with the _Doctor._

_The Doctor._

The Doctor had kissed her, and held her, and touched her with so much desire Yaz feels her whole body burn with fire just thinking about it.

She’d wanted her since she watched her jump that damn crane, and loved her almost for as long as that. And it had finally happened.

_And then she left_ , she reminds herself, but quickly chastises herself for the thought - she _knows_ the Doctor was just upset about the day. And she really can’t blame her - it had been awful enough just to witness, Yaz could only imagine how she must be feeling thinking herself responsible for it. The Doctor had needed her and she’d been there for her, and Yaz is certain that tomorrow when she feels better they can talk about it. Her heart speeds up at the thought of it happening again - maybe next time she can slow her down, coax her into a bed perhaps and actually get the chance to undress her too. Yaz’s cheeks burn when she realises that the Doctor had seen her mostly naked and she’d only managed to get her out of her coat.

She doesn’t even realise her hand has wandered beneath the waistband of her pyjama bottoms until her hips jump at the touch of her fingertips on her clit, and realising how impossibly wet she is again she gives in, touching herself lightly; gently in contrast to the way the Doctor had taken her not an hour before, the memory of that encounter and the way she could still feel the Doctor’s harsh touch inside her driving her desire and her hand to move quickly.

She brings herself to a gradual climax, letting the orgasm wash over her gently, coming to the memory of the Doctor’s fingers deep inside her, her breath hot by her ear and her body lithe and beautiful against her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am intending on this being 3 or 4 chapters if I decide to continue it, I have a little more written and a plot outline but it depends on how well its received because I'm definitely putting forward a darker side to thirteen than I have previously... please let me know your thoughts!


	2. Chapter 2

Yaz is both relieved and a little panicked when she steps into the Tardis kitchen in search of breakfast the next morning to find the Doctor there alone, tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth as she points her sonic at the kettle.

She clears her throat, feeling nerves bubble in her stomach, and the Doctor whirls to face her. She gives her a grin, the usual softness back round the corners of her eyes and tension that had been visible in her features the night before gone.

“Yaz! Morning,” she greets her brightly. “Ready to try some edible trees today!? Promise this time - already landed us and been out to check.”

She smiles back, feeling herself start to relax and nodding as she comes to stand beside her.

“You put it back together then?” She points at the Sonic in her hand.

“Oh - yep! New and improved! Well, not new - at least not most of it. Just modified. And a couple of new bits. Already fixed the kettle so seems to be working well.”

“The kettle wasn’t broken,” Yaz frowns as she reaches for a mug and spoons coffee into it.

“Ermm… I sort of broke the kettle first. Then I fixed it.” Another bright grin, and she picks up the milk next to her. “Milk?”

“Thanks,” Yaz smiles, reaching to take it, hand pausing as it touches the Doctor’s own. She bites her lip as their eyes meet - the Doctor’s so open and gentle and nothing like they’d been last night, gazing back at her with such softness that it prompts her to gather all her courage and lean up on her tiptoes to press her lips to the Doctor’s.

The timelord jumps back with a yelp, spilling the milk all over their hands and the countertop.

“Sorry,” She mutters after an awkward pause, grabbing for a cloth, “that was.... a surprise.”

Yaz stares at her. “Was it?”

She stops dabbing at the counter and turns to face her with wide eyes.

She licks her lips. “Yaz -“

“Morning, morning!” Graham’s cheery voice breaks them apart, both stepping away from each other guiltily, Yaz quickly grabbing the bottle of milk and sloshing far too much into her coffee mug.

“Morning Graham,” Yaz says, reaching for another mug and trying to ignore the way her heart was pounding in her chest. “Coffee?”

“Ooh yes please Yaz, you’re an angel. Where to today then Doc?”

\--

Yaz had been somewhat surprised when the Doctor had stayed throughout breakfast, half expecting her to go scampering off avoiding her eyes again, but on the contrary she sits next to her at the table, shooting unreadable glances at her often enough to make anxiety build in her chest.

Why had she leapt back from her like that? Surely it wasn’t that much of a leap to kiss the woman you’d slept with the night before? Yaz had thought it meant that she… but maybe she’d been wrong? Maybe the Doctor regretted what happened between them already.

Thankfully, she doesn’t have to wait too long to find out, the Doctor catching her arm gently when she makes to stand with the boys when they’re done, offering them a soft, “We’ll be there in a minute,’ a clear dismissal that Ryan waves off, trailing after Graham towards the console room.

Yaz sits back down, turning to face her with her pulse racing.

“About… what happened last night,” the Doctor says softly, and Yaz’s heart speeds up. She looks at her carefully. “You don’t… regret it, do you?”

Yaz blinks, taken aback by the question. She had thought _she_ …

“No!” She quickly says when she finds her voice. “No, I don’t regret it… do you?”

She smiles. “Of course not. But you do know that -” she pauses, licks her lips and takes a breath - “that it doesn’t mean that we’re - that I’m…” she trails off again and huffs like she’s frustrated with herself, and Yaz can hardly bear to listen. “I don’t do relationships Yaz, not in the human sense of the word. It just doesn’t work. And I’ve been in enough of them to know it’s not something I want any more. You understand, right?”

“Oh,” she says, trying to swallow down the lump in her throat, “no, yeah, that’s fine,” she nods quickly. “I never expected - I mean - I know it was just - it didn’t mean anything.” She says, her own words a knife to her chest.

“Of course it meant something,” the Doctor says though, “It meant everything to me last night.”

Yaz feels the hurt disappearing and her heart melting at the words. What was she _doing_ to her?

“It - it did?”

The Doctor nods and places her hand on Yaz’s cheek. “You were there for me when I needed you. And I’ll never forget that. And you did help me, really.”

“Oh,” she says. “Well - I’m glad. That’s good. Glad I could help.”

 _Glad I could help??_ Yaz’s cheeks flush as she realises how ridiculous that sounds, given the situation in question. _Yeah I’m glad I could help you, Doctor. Giving you my virginity to cheer you up._ But of course she doesn’t say that - it’s not like the Doctor even _knows_ that was what happened, and Yaz knows it’s not fair of her to put that on her. Still, she can’t help but feel a twinge of resentment over the situation.

“Okay, good. Glad we’re on the same page.”

the Doctor’s hand drops from her face to her thigh and she tilts her head, giving her a look up under her lashes that makes Yaz’s heart rate double.

“It was good though, wasn’t it?” She gives her a lopsided grin, eyes flicking to her lips and for a moment Yaz thinks she is going to kiss her, and holds her breath - but she doesn’t, just raises her eyebrows at her expectantly.

“Yeah,” Yaz forces a smile. “It was good.”

The Doctor’s hand squeezes her thigh before she stands from the table, already chattering excitedly about the new planet as Yaz gets to her own feet and trails quietly after her.

—

Things seem to carry on as normal for the next couple of weeks. Adventures pass, new planets are discovered, people saved and friends made, and they also spend a few days at home in Sheffield. Yaz is glad to do a couple of shifts at work; she worked hard to get her job and she’s determined not to throw away her career, even if she’s not certain that future is what she wants anymore. She’s even trusted enough to be signed on to a high priority case involving the theft of a number of valuable cars - although it feels somewhat mundane after her life with the Doctor.

Yaz’s heart aches every time she looks at the Doctor and remembers her face pressed so close to her own, her eyes burning into hers like she could see into her very soul, and her fingers buried deep inside her. The Doctor seems perfectly capable of acting like absolutely nothing has changed between them - probably because, in the Doctor’s eyes, nothing had - and Yaz tries to do the same, but she’s certain the flush must be visible on her cheeks every time the Doctor stands close.

She tries not to let what happened get to her. Tries to brush it off as an encounter between friends driven by frayed emotions of a trying day, just something that happened in a moment of joint weakness. But when she curls up in bed alone at night and thinks about rough hands tugging at her clothes and hot breath ragged by her ear she can’t always stop the tears from coming. She’s not upset that it had happened - just that that was the only way she was ever going to know the Doctor’s touch. And that she had believed for several, blissful moments when they’d been joined that it was want and need for _her_ that was driving her to take her with such passion - not just need for anything to take her mind off an awful day.

Yaz doesn’t expect it to happen again and isn’t certain she wants it to anyway - she’s not the sort of girl for casual flings; otherwise she wouldn’t have waited until she was almost twenty before having sex. It isn’t like she hasn’t had the opportunity before, just that she’d never felt strongly enough about someone to feel like allowing them that part of herself… even though it hadn’t turned out the way she expected, she’s glad it was the Doctor, she tells herself firmly, wondering why her chest ached so much and why she couldn't stop crying quietly into her pillow.

Then the Doctor takes them to Jurassic Planet. She tells them she’d heard about it, a tribute to the old earth films that were apparently still popular in the thirtieth century, but had never been there. Of course, she explained to them, it didn’t have real dinosaurs, that kind of genetic engineering was extremely illegal everywhere in the galaxy by then - not to mention morally abominable, she’d added firmly - the dinosaurs were just simulations.

Except they weren’t.

Nearly being eaten by an actual t-rex was an experience Yaz would never forget, although it paled in comparison to the fury she’d seen from the Doctor when she finally broke into the lab and faced down a room full of shocked scientists.

She doesn’t quite remember how the situation had gone from trying to save a load of genetically engineered dinosaurs along with the planet full of humans they were trying to eat, to being flat on her back on a table in the laboratory with the Doctor on top of her, her teeth sinking into the top of her breast, but that’s where she finds herself.

She gasps, blinking up at the ceiling as she feels a hand wiggle its way inside her jeans, and tries to clear her head.

“I don’t - I don’t think - maybe this isn’t the best - idea,” she pants out, “right now...”

“Why not?” The Doctor mutters, mouthing at her nipple through the lace of her bra.

“Um - t-rex on the loose!?”

“I know, I just -“ the Doctor huffs and lifts her head to look down at Yaz. Her hair is mussed and her eyes dark, and the way they stare into Yaz’s own sends heat curling down her spine. “I just need a minute to think... you help.”

Yaz’s heart melts as she gazes up at her. _I help!_ Her heart echoes with a little thrill, just like she’d felt when they’d finally made it up here and discovered what was going on, and the Doctor had sent Ryan and Graham away down to search the lower levels before upending an entire table full of test tubes and microscopes and laptops, sending the lot crashing to the floor in fury.

It was Yaz she trusted enough to see the side of her that wasn’t in control, _Yaz_ she was turning to when she needed to think, and Yaz is far too thrilled at that to deny her anything in that moment. Maybe… she’d been wrong before - it had been _Yaz_ she’d needed that night, not just anybody willing.

 _I help_.

“Okay…” she breathes, the Doctor’s kisses already moving down her body, pulling aside her open shirt to nip at the skin of her stomach.

“You know, the one thing I never seem to get done saving you from is yourselves,” she mutters, voice almost a growl, and bites her again a little harder.

Yaz jumps a bit, hissing, and tries to focus her thoughts enough to come up with a reply. “Yeah - you think the movies would have tipped them off,” she quips, trying to make light of the situation and ignore the particular choice of pronouns.

She ignores her, and Yaz feels her kisses move lower - well, less kisses and more sharp nips of her teeth, sucking at her skin in an agitated way Yaz knew was going to leave marks, until she finally stops, and drops her forehead to her stomach with a sigh. “I don’t know how I’m going to fix this,” she admits quietly, and Yaz feels her heart ache at the anxiety in her voice.

She lifts a hand, ignoring the way it shakes slightly to stroke her fingers gently through blonde hair.

“You’ll find a way,” Yaz tells her confidently. “You always do.”

She lifts her head to look up at her. “What I want to do is blow this entire lab to pieces.”

“Then… let’s do it?” She says but the Doctor shakes her head with a troubled frown.

“But I _can’t_ \- these creatures - they’re alive Yaz,” she gestures to the dozens of eggs settled under heat lamps in the adjoining room through the glass wall, and Yaz swallows as her eyes follow those and land on the embryos of dinosaurs she can see floating in tanks. “And they’re innocent. Just like most of the people living on this planet.”

Yaz lets her words sink in, thinking back to the spiders in Sheffield. Only the Doctor could feel for a creature that had literally just tried to eat them alive. Yaz had never met anyone with so much empathy and kindness in their hearts and she feels herself fall for her a little further.

“I know,” she answers quietly.

The Doctor’s hand has stilled inside Yaz’s jeans, fingers resting lightly over her sex, and she’s unable to stop herself squirming a little. She thinks that’s probably it, expects the Doctor to leap to her feet at any moment and take off pacing the lab again and is preparing herself to shove down her desire so she can help her, when she pulls her hand out but instead of moving away, starts yanking at Yaz’s open jeans, mouth hot on her skin, kissing her way purposefully down again.

“What -” she gasps, making her pause and glance up at her, “What are you doing!?”

The Doctor raises an eyebrow. “Nobody ever gone down on you before?”

Yaz’s stomach flips.

“What!” She squeaks,  “- I mean yeah, of course, just - we’re - literally in a _really_ public place right now and anyone could come in here…”

The Doctor lifts her sonic and aims it over her shoulder, and Yaz hears the click of a lock. “Not now they won’t.”

“The - walls are bloody glass Doctor!”

But she doesn’t seem to hear her, too busy extracting a leg from her jeans and knickers and shoe - just the one, all that’s needed to push her thighs apart and bare her slick sex to her.

Yaz’s hand is still in the Doctor’s hair, and she grips tightly as she ducks her head down between her legs, biting down on her bottom lip hard as she feels the first touch of a hot wet tongue slide through her folds.

God, what was she doing? She shouldn’t be doing this here - she shouldn’t be doing this anywhere. The Doctor was just using her… using her because she was frustrated with the situation and needed an outlet for it - again.

 _You help_ , she remembers her saying, honest eyes holding her own, and Yaz feels her resolve waver.

The Doctor pushes her bare leg up, opening her to her more, and Yaz’s heel comes to rest on her shoulder, her eyelids fluttering closed and a gasp falling from her parted lips as she feels the Doctor open her mouth over her and push her tongue inside her.

It’s good, _so good,_ and she laps at her like she’s everything she wants and Yaz starts to believe it - because why would she be doing something so intimate as this if she didn’t want Yaz as desperately as she wanted her?

It’s realising the intimacy of what’s happening however, that makes Yasmin’s eyes snap open and panic flood through her when she remembers exactly where they are. Her gaze darts around the laboratory, heart starting to pound as she realises how exposed they are should anybody come back up to this level - she thinks of Ryan and Graham appearing to look for them and a knot of anxiety forms in her chest.

“Come on,” the Doctor mutters, lifting her head just enough to speak, thumb moving up to take her tongue’s place on her clit, “I want to see you come.” She pushes two fingers into her and Yaz gasps, “You look so beautiful when you come.”

Her mouth fastens back over her clit as fingers curl inside her, and Yaz bites down hard on her lip, squeezing her eyes shut again and trying to focus on the sensations, to give the Doctor what she wants. But she’s too distracted by their whereabouts, too anxious that anybody might see them - and god, she’s taking too long isn’t she? She can feel the Doctor’s movements getting more frustrated, feel the seconds ticking by and the possibility of them being found increasing, and the heat that was building in the pit of her belly has dissipated.

Not knowing what else to do, Yaz tightens her hand in the Doctor’s hair and gives a cry that she hopes sounds convincing, gasping and moaning her name as she pushes her hips towards her face, before she slumps down on the table and blinks open her eyes, looking down at the Doctor as she lifts her head.

She stares up at her for a moment, and Yaz gives her a shaky smile as she slips her fingers out.

“That was good,” she utters down to her as she lets her leg drop from her shoulder. The Doctor gives her an odd look, and clambers off her.

She helps Yaz dress again this time at least, although her hands are hasty as she helps her fully back into her jeans and re-buttons her shirt, eyes not meeting hers as she hands her her jacket before turning on her heel and striding off to one of the laptops and tapping away on the keypad, already explaining her newly hatched plan a mile a minute.

Yaz’s legs wobble a bit when she stands, and she smooths shaking hands down over her clothes, trying to get her head back to the current situation and wondering how it was the Doctor looked as though nothing had happened.

Things are… weird between them for the remainder of the trip.

Yaz can’t put her finger on it, but she’s sure the Doctor is detached and distant, never looking her in the eyes when she speaks, preferring Ryan or Graham when she needs to ask someone to do something directly. Yaz tells herself she’s probably just distracted - she is trying to save a planet load of dinosaurs and people after all, and when she grabs Yaz and hauls her to her, saving her from the jaws of the t-rex just a second in time and frantically asks if she’s ok before taking off running again, Yaz decides she’s just being paranoid.

\--

Everyone is exhausted by the time they all get back to the Tardis. She’s pretty sure they’ve never done so much running in one trip before, and they’d all taken more than a few knocks and falls (poor Ryan considerably more than the rest of them) and Yaz is certain she has a huge bruise on the side of her face where a scaly tail had caught her and sent her flying to the floor that she’s going to have fun trying to explain away to her mum.

“Are you alright?” Yaz asks the Doctor gently after she’d slammed the lever down and landed them with a thump.

She nods tensely.

“You saved most of them?” She tries and the Doctor sighs.

“I know.”

It hadn’t all ended the way they’d planned, but then things rarely did. The Doctor _did_ manage to save the majority of the dinosaurs on the planet, negotiating with the government to have them all moved to their own section where they could live out their lives in peace, the people segregated safely on different pieces of land. But not before the ones that had gotten loose amongst the city and started the trouble had been killed - apparently they all had chips implanted in their brains as infants that allowed them to be destroyed by the push of a button. The worst part was that the Doctor had been tricked into pushing that button herself. She’d got the man responsible along with all the scientists who’d created them shipped off the planet to stand trial for what he’d done there, but it was little consolation.

“We’re home.” She gestures to the doors. “Sheffield. You must all be tired.”

Ryan and Graham’s shoulders visibly slump, and they are already heading to the doors as they agree.  

“Pick us up Saturday yeah?” Ryan checks and the Doctor nods. “And hey,” he says, pausing to give her a smile. “Real dinosaurs. It was pretty cool.”

She smiles back weakly, and Yaz moves to follow them out of the doors but is surprised when she feels the Doctor gently catch her sleeve, and when she looks back at her finds her brow furrowed and her eyes pleading with her quietly.

Yaz tilts her head, stepping back towards her.

“Do you need me to stay?” She asks softly, and the Doctor nods.

“Yaz?”

She turns to see Ryan waiting by the doors for her.

“It’s okay. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow?”

Ryan gives her an odd look but waves her off, disappearing through the doors and letting them swing shut behind him. Yaz turns back to the Doctor.

“Are _you_ alright?” The Doctor asks her, touching fingers lightly to her face, making her wince.

“Oh yeah, I’m fine,” she waves it off. “Had worse on the night shift in Sheffield.”

The Doctor tilts her head, eyes flickering over her face, and a small smile appears on her lips. “You’re a tough one, aren’t you Yasmin Khan?”

Her pride swells a little at the compliment, and she shrugs. “I have to be.”

After a lingering look, she drops her hand and moves away, tapping at buttons and fiddling with a lever.

Yaz follows her cautiously. “Did you… what did you need?”

“Just to talk.” She pulls another lever and turns to face her. Yaz’s heart speeds up.

“Oh?” When she doesn't reply, just watches Yaz quietly, she swallows and steps closer. “What… did you want to talk about?”

“You.”

Yaz feels butterflies in her stomach. “Me?” She utters back dumbly, and the Doctor nods, watching her quietly for another moment before she finally speaks.

“I’ve been alive for over two thousand years… you think I don’t know when someone’s faking an orgasm?”

Yazs stomach drops and her heart starts pounding.

“I’m - I - I wasn’t - I just - I just didn’t -“

“Yaz,” she cuts her off, and Yazs hands are sweating when she takes them in her own. “If you don’t want me,” she says quietly, and drops her eyes to look down at their hands “it’s okay,” she mumbles, and the look on her face breaks Yasmin’s heart.

“No! No, no - of course I want you,” she gushes, but the Doctor shakes her head, dropping her hands to turn away from her and shove a hand through her hair.

“I know you… thought I was… _‘amazing_ ’, or the ‘best person you know’ or whatever it was - and you’re seeing now that I’m not and that -” she scoffs, shaking her head, “half the time I have no idea what I’m doing and I make mistakes and I’m not always great at keeping control… I know that’s not the person you thought I was. And I know… that’s probably not very attractive, or whatever,” she mumbles, fiddling with the console again and avoiding Yaz’s eyes.

God, she looks so despondent that Yaz’s chest physically aches, and she hates herself for putting that expression on her face.

“No,” she says firmly, stepping towards her. “Doctor - you’ve got it wrong.”

She glances up at her warily, but with a little spark of hope in her eyes that Yaz clings to, and uses it to drive her to continue. “I was just worried someone was going to come in and find us… and it was distracting me too much. But I just - I didn’t want - I felt like… I was taking too long, and I was worried the boys would come back...I’m sorry?”

“Oh,” She says, and looks at her carefully for a minute. Finally she swallows and turns to face her fully.

“You’re sure?”

She nods quickly. “I do want you Doctor,” she promises fiercely, “and I meant everything I said before about - about how amazing I think you are… none of that’s changed.”

She tilts her head. “No?”

“No. Nothing could ever change the way I f- what I think about you,” she quickly corrects.

The Doctors eyes flicker over her face and she sees something strange in her expression, but it’s gone before Yaz can identify it, replaced by a small smile.

“Okay then,” she says, and her expression is softer, the anxiety gone from the edges of her face.

“Maybe we could…” Yaz steps forward bravely, eyeing the Doctors lips, “try again?”

The Doctor gazes back at her for a moment before her face breaks into a brilliant grin, and then she takes Yazs hand in her own and turns to tug her from the room.

She isn’t surprised when she finally leads her through a door and closes it behind them, and Yaz realises it’s a bedroom, her hearts speeding up. “Is this your room?” She turns to ask, and the Doctor shrugs, clapping her hands so the main light goes off, leaving just a little lamp glowing by the huge bed in the corner.

“Sort of,” is all she replies with, before tugging Yaz towards the bed.

And this time the Doctor makes certain that Yaz comes - three times over actually, until her body is trembling and wrung out with pleasure and she’s aching and exhausted in the best way.

Afterwards, the Doctor sheds her own clothes in front of her for the first time and Yasmin’s breath is taken away as she crawls up over her, kneeling over her face and gazing down at her with lust clouded eyes.

Yaz doesn’t know what she’s doing really, but the Doctor makes it easy, one hand pushed into her dark hair and the other holding herself open as she rocks her hips against her and Yaz keeps pace with the stroke of her tongue until she breaks apart over her with a cry of pleasure.

They are both panting and covered in a layer of sweat gleaming in the soft light of the lamp as the Doctor collapses onto her back beside her. She gives a breathless laugh.

“That was fun,” she proclaims before sitting up and swinging her legs out of bed. “Sex is really different as a woman.”

The choice of the word _fun_ setting alarm bells ringing in her head, Yaz turns to find the Doctor hastily gathering her clothes from the floor and the bells blare louder.

“You… you’re not staying?”

She tilts her head at her as she wriggles into her trousers like the question is curious. “Staying?”

“With…” Yaz trails off, realising with a sinking feeling of dread that she’d been wrong about this again.

“Oh - I don’t need to sleep as much as you do,” she explains, like that could be the only reason Yaz assumed she would stay, and she feels her stomach sink fully.

“You stay though, if you don’t feel like going to your own room - I don’t mind.”

 _Gee, thanks_ , she thinks bitterly, and vows as the Doctor leaves her alone in sweat damp sheets to cry into an empty room that she would never do this to herself again.

—

The next time when she leaves her, exhausted and naked in her bed, Yaz doesn’t say anything when she gets up, turning her face away so she needn’t watch her dress, and the Doctor needn’t see the tears well in her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the positive feedback on the first chapter! I'm pleased that although this one is slightly darker there's still interest in it, and I hope this second part hasn't scared you away, I know it's kind of complex with a lot of feelings going on and I'm anxious to know whether its all coming across as I hope so pleeease please share your thoughts with me!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reiterating the note on the first chapter: this fic deals with strong sexual scenes of dubious consent, please avoid if you feel you will be affected by this.

At first it’s just the odd time - always after something had gone wrong and the Doctor was frustrated or upset and Yaz made herself too willing to help take that away for the Doctor to apparently resist.

After the eighth time - when a fire had nearly burned them all alive like it had the rest of the people trapped on a space station, and the Doctor had dragged Yaz back to her room and fucked her hard with the scent of smoke still clinging to them and ash on their skin - Yaz stops telling herself it will be the last.

Her nails dig into her flesh that night and her hands leave bruises on her hips, but after she’s pushed Yaz down between her legs, hands desperate as they yank at her hair and Yaz has made her come apart with her mouth around her clit, the Doctor pulls her up and buries her face in her hair, and Yaz is shocked to realise after a moment that she’s crying.

With some coaxing the Doctor tells her quietly in short muddled sentences that Yaz manages to piece together how her own planet had burned, and she couldn’t save anyone today just like she couldn’t save her own people. There’s other jumbled information she can’t decipher and she keeps repeating that it had been her fault, until Yaz finally manages to hush her with gentle fingers stroking through her hair until her breathing evens out, and for the first time since the night she’d met her, she sees the timelord sleep.

It is that night as she lays with the Doctor’s head pillowed on her chest that Yaz knows she’ll never deny her anything, because the Doctor has been through more than Yaz can even imagine, and if she can help, just a tiny bit by being what she needs in moments like this, then she will. Because she loves her. That’s also the first time she admits that fully to herself - and to the Doctor although she doesn’t know it, sound asleep as Yaz whispers the words quietly to her, telling her she’s here for her. Whatever she needs.

She thinks things will be different after that, but she’s wrong, the Doctor breezing into the console room right as rain the next day and acting like nothing had happened between them. But Yaz knows now - she knows that no matter the brave face she puts on, there’s deep heartache inside the Doctor - and she _needs her,_ and that knowledge consoles her a little when her heart sinks as the Doctor’s eyes pass over hers as briefly as they do the others.

Some weeks later - or months perhaps, it is hard to judge how much time had passed when time is non existent for them - things shift between them. The Doctor mentions space legoland once and Ryan goes on and on about it until she gives in and takes them all. The day flies by in laughter and fun, one of the rare trips where nothing actually goes wrong, no monsters try to take over the world and they even manage to get Graham on a couple of rides, and they are all happy and relaxed when they get back to the Tardis at the end of it.

Which is why Yaz is surprised when she bids goodnight to the Doctor along with the boys and makes to head off to her room but finds her hand caught in the Doctor’s.

She tugs her back to her, and leans in to murmur lowly in her ear in a voice that makes Yaz’s insides heat up; “go to my room, not yours.”

She releases her and twirls away, tapping away at controls as she calls out a cheery goodnight to Graham and Ryan who are disappearing off down the hallways. Still trying to catch her breath, Yaz turns and hurries off after them in the direction she’d told her.

Unsure what she should do, Yaz settles for kicking off her shoes and perching on the edge of the bed to wait for her. She doesn’t take long, slipping into her room and closing the door softly behind her, crossing the room to Yaz as she sheds her coat and shrugs her braces off her shoulders, kicking her boots off one at a time and moving directly to straddle Yaz’s lap, kissing her as she topples them backwards onto the soft mattress.

“Are you… okay?” Yaz says, when they break apart for air, and the Doctor nods, grinning down at her as she tugs at her top. “You sure?” She says, arching up so the Doctor can tug it up over her head. “Because we don’t usually…” She trails off, letting the silence finish her sentence.

“I’m fine. I’ve just wanted you all day.”

Yazs heart speeds up. “You have?” She utters and the Doctor nods. She pauses then, and sits up on top of her.  

“Is that okay? Because if you don’t feel like doing this right now we don’t -”

“No!” Yaz gasps, sitting up too and pushing her hands into the Doctor’s hair. “I do want to. Of course I want to.”

“Yeah?” She grins back at her and Yaz nods quickly, hope bubbling inside her.

“I always want you, Doctor,” she tells her honestly, tilting her head up to kiss her again.

\--

From then on, it happens between them more frequently. She gets to recognise the glint in the Doctor’s eye, the looks she starts shooting her when the others aren’t looking that means she’s thinking about what she’s going to do to her when they’re alone later. Or sometimes she doesn’t even wait until then, taking any opportunity to yank her aside and away, out of sight in a corner or behind some trees - or even in the backseat of a futuristic flying taxi car once. That had been fun, until the partition had rolled down and they realised their driver was the blue-skinned alien they were escaping from in the taxi in the first place.

She doesn’t try and kiss or touch the Doctor when they’re not together like that, understanding after going in for a kiss the second time and getting much the same reaction as she had the first, that it’s not what she wants. It hurts, but she knows the Doctor isn’t aware of her feelings for her - from the Doctor’s point of view, she and Yaz are just ‘having fun’, as she frequently likes to put it, with no strings attached. Yaz still hopes somewhere deep down inside that one day it may be something more - the Doctor  _needs_ her, and she wants her too now, and Yaz doesn’t think it’s unrealistic to believe that could morph into deeper feelings over time. For now, she is happy to just be what she needs.

“Bloody hell I’m knackered,” Graham complains as they trudge into the Tardis.

“Yeah,” says Ryan, “Next time… can you park the Tardis at the _bottom_ of a mountain and not the top?”

“It’s hardly a mountain Ryan, don’t exaggerate,” the Doctor replies, not at all out of breath like the rest of them. “It’s a hill.”

“ _Mountain_ ,” they all three chorus firmly.

The Doctor sighs, piloting them away into the vortex. “You humans - you always love to complain. Go on then, off you pop and get some sleep, or food or whatever it is you want this time. I know _just_ the place we can go tomorrow,” she tells them with a grin.

“Oh yeah?” Graham perks up, “where’s that then?”

“Ah, ah!” She taps her nose with a smirk, “You’ll have to wait and see. Off you go!” She shoos them away. “Except you Yaz, just need to see you in the study a minute. Got something I want to ask you.”

_See you in the study_ was code for ‘come to my bedroom’, and Yaz’s stomach flutters the way it always does whenever the Doctor suggests she wants her, even as her shoulders sag a bit when she thinks about how tired she is - and hungry.

The Doctor heads off quickly, followed by Graham who’s mumbling about the kitchen, and Yaz goes to trail after the Doctor when Ryan’s voice halts her in her tracks.

“You can say no to her, you know.”

Yaz freezes and blinks at Ryan.

“What?”

“To the Doctor.”

“What are you -” she cuts off when he fixes her with a look, and clears her throat, cheeks flushing. She looks down. “I didn’t realise you knew… about - us,” she says a bit awkwardly.

“Yeah, it ain’t exactly subtle.”

“Oh,” she mumbles, not sure what else to say.

Ryan sighs. “Yaz. You’re me mate. I know we’re not… close or anything,” he looks about as awkward as Yaz feels, but plunges firmly on, “But I’m worried about you. Are you sure this thing is… good? ‘Cause it seems kind of like it’s always what the Doctor wants and when. Don’t you get a say in it?”

A little shocked by how much of what was going on between them Ryan seemed to have picked up on (did that mean it was so obvious Graham knew too? She feels her cheeks flush further), Yaz tries to find the words to respond. She shakes her head firmly.

“It’s not like that. She’s -”

“Your girlfriend?” He raises his eyebrows pointedly like he knows the answer.

“No.” She looks down.

“But… you wish she was.”

“...No. It’s not like that,” she repeats.

“What’s it like then? Whatever the Doctor says it is?”

Frowning, she shakes her head again. “No.” She opens her mouth to continue but can’t find the words so closes it again. “She needs me,” she finally says firmly.

“Yeah but what do you get out if it?”

_Apart from mind blowing orgasms?_

She doesn't say that, of course, but finds she has nothing to say instead. When the stiff silence stretches out past a few seconds, Ryan stands up a bit straighter, folding his arms, obviously taking that for an answer.

Yaz clears her throat. “I get to be there for her. That’s enough.”

He watches her quietly for a moment.

“If you say so.”

“Yaz?” The Doctors head pops back round the corner.

“I’m sorry, I’ll be right there,” she answers quickly, and the Doctor glances between them before disappearing again. Yaz makes to hurry after her.

“Yaz,” Ryan sighs, stopping her again.

“Yeah?”

“Come on, man. I’m starving - you must be too. Come and eat something with us first - she can wait.”

Yaz hesitates, glancing back towards the hallway then at Ryan.

Ryan was right in a sense, she knew that. And it wasn’t like anything bad had happened today - not like the Doctor needed her in _that_ way. She supposed she could wait.

Taking a deep breath, she nods her head.

“Okay, yeah. I am pretty hungry.”

Ryan grins, and throws an arm around her as he starts towards the kitchen.

“ _Yes_ \- maybe if there’s two of us we can convince gramps to make those spicy chicken things with the red stuff again…”

\--

When Yaz knocks on the Doctor’s bedroom door some time later, her palms are sweating and her heart is beating fast in her chest.

“It’s open.”

She slinks in, closing it softly behind her, and the Doctor leaps up from the bed, striding across the room to her.

“Where’ve you _been?”_

“I’m sorry, Graham made chicken and I was starving, and you know how much he talks over dinner,” she rambles. _Why are you apologising to her?_ She asks herself, but that train of thought is swiftly cut short when the Doctor shoves her back against the door and kisses her hungrily before pulling back to growl, “ _I’m_ starving,” against her lips. She takes her wrist and tows her across the room.

“We saved you some,” Yaz says, trying to ignore the way her heart is pounding.

“Not that kind of starving.” Hands on her shoulders she shoves Yaz down on the bed, climbing up over her and leaning down to kiss her deep and filthily as her hands roam up under her shirt. “God you feel good,” she groans against Yaz’s lips, hands shoving under her bra as her hips rock, grinding down on her thigh. “I can’t remember the last time I wanted sex this much... must be this body....” she lifts her head to grin impishly down at Yaz. “Lucky I have you.”

_Is that all I am to you?_ She wants to shove her back and demand, Ryan’s words circling in her head, _a sex toy!?_

But she doesn’t, possibly too scared of the answer to such a thing.

It’s a short while later when the Doctor has ducked down between her legs and is doing frankly incredible things to her with her mouth, that Yaz curses Ryan and the weird doubts he’d put into her head. This was enough. Having the Doctor like this _was_ enough, the woman she loved with all her attention focused on Yaz like she was the most desirable thing in the world in that moment was more than enough. It didn’t matter that she didn’t love her, because Yaz got to be with her, got to be there for her and give her what she needed, and she’d already accepted the fact that she didn’t feel the same way as her - how much worse could it get?

Three days later she finds out.

\--

The second Yaz hears the unmistakable voice of a dalek she knows how this day is going to end.

The situation becomes more dire, the Doctor's patience wears thinner and Yaz’s stomach ties itself in a tighter knot of anticipation. Funny, the very real threat of the dalek succeeding in killing them all doesn’t even factor in to Yaz being on edge all day. She’s hardly even scared of the thing, because she knows the Doctor will save them - and she does.

It isn’t without great trial and loss, and when they finally make it back to the Tardis and fly away, they are all exhausted but with adrenalin still pumping through them, the atmosphere is heavy, and the Doctor’s eyes are burning into her own.

She slams her up against her bedroom door when she gets it shut behind them, turning the lock with a distinctive click as she kisses her hard, teeth clicking against her own and hands tight in her hair.

“Undress. Quickly,” she mutters to her before pulling away, striding off across the room to yank open cupboards and drawers, and Yaz pushes herself away from the door and hurries to do as she asks. Apparently she’s not quick enough for the Doctor’s liking though because she’s only managed to get her jacket and jumper off and is halfway through undoing her jeans while she’s kicking her shoes off when the Doctor grabs her wrist and drags her across the room.

“Ow - Doctor -” She protests as she trips over a trainer and stumbles.

“I need you,” is all the Doctor replies, shoving her down onto her bed. “Now.”

Yaz shuffles herself fully up into the middle of it, reaching round behind her back to unclip her bra as the Doctor climbs up after her. She pushes her down onto her back and grabs at the undone piece of clothing, throwing it aside before she grabs both of Yaz’s wrists and yanks them up above her head.

She has a long piece of fabric in her hand - Yaz thinks it might be a bowtie? But doesn’t have time to get a proper glance at it before she feels her wrapping it around her wrists, around and around and securing them both to the bed frame with it, yanking the knot hard. Yaz tugs at it experimentally as she moves away and a flutter of nerves goes through her stomach when she finds it doesn’t budge.

Isn’t there supposed to be a safe word or something for this kind of thing?

She glances up to see the Doctor yanking down her jeans, a frown on her face, and Yaz’s eyes drift downwards to take in the strap on that she’d used on her for the first time last week secured in place around her bare hips. The butterflies flutter harder in her stomach even as she feels the heat that had been present between her legs for the majority of her day burn fiercer, and she knows she’s already wet when the Doctor drags her knickers down her legs and off.

“Are you alright?” Yaz asks shakily as the Doctor pushes apart her thighs, refusing to meet her eyes, gaze instead intent between her legs as she rubs three fingers through her slick heat before spreading her wetness over the length of the toy.

She nods tenseley, then hauls Yaz to her so her arms are stretched right up above her head, shoving a pillow beneath her hips and hooking her arm under Yaz’s knee as she moves up to hover over her. The toy brushes against her sex and the Doctor reaches down to line herself up with her entrance and Yaz feels her breath catch in her throat, a little fear gripping her at the realisation that wound up as she was, the Doctor wasn’t going to be gentle, and Yaz had only had something this size inside her the once before - and it had been painful enough then when they’d taken it slowly.

The Doctor doesn’t give her the chance to voice her concerns, apart from a hastily muttered, “You’re okay with this right?” That doesn’t really give Yaz room to do much but agree, nodding wordlessly before the Doctor pushes inside her.

Yaz feels her body stretch and tries to tell herself to relax. It hurts more than the first time they’d done this but that’s probably because unlike then, she didn’t exactly take much time to ensure Yaz was ready now - but she knows she can’t expect that, not today.

The Doctor is still wearing her shirts, and her clothed chest brushes Yaz’s bare one as she moves over her, pushing the toy deeper with hard thrusts of her hips. Yaz curls her legs over the Doctor’s back, hooking her ankles together and squeezing her eyes shut as she tries to enjoy the sensation of having her against her and inside her like this. She jumps when she feels a hand cup her face and snaps her eyes open to see the Doctor staring down at her intently. Her thumb tugs Yaz’s bottom lip from between her teeth as she gives a jerky shake of her head. “Let me hear you.”

She doesn’t come, she knows there’s no point in pretending but the Doctor doesn’t seem focused on her anyway, hands planted either side of her head as she drives the toy deep and hard inside her, chasing her own pleasure from the pressure of the toy against her clit, with her brow furrowed and mouth open.

Yaz doesn’t have to fake the sounds anyway and the Doctor doesn’t seem to notice the edge of pain to her cries, or mention it if she does.

When she’s finished she slumps over Yaz only for a few seconds before withdrawing her hips, letting the glistening toy slide out, and kneeling up to hastily unfasten the harness from around her hips as they both pant for breath. She lets it drop to the bed between Yaz’s legs before clambering to her feet and dragging her trousers back on, shrugging braces over her shoulders and grabbing her boots, already stumbling to the door.

It slams shut behind her, and Yaz has never felt more used.

She lays there, panting and aching for a few minutes until she slowly moves to sit up - and realises in horror that her hands are still bound above her head.

She yanks at the cloth, once, twice, wriggles her hands a little desperately but finds them well and truly trapped.

A wave of panic rushes through her chest, and tears well in her eyes.

_You’re okay,_ she tells herself quickly, determined not to break down - the Doctor hadn’t done it on purpose - she would never leave her like that, she’d obviously just forgotten she was tied up. Yaz knew her head was all over the place at the moment and she knew she’d never deliberately do anything to hurt her. She’d probably realise soon and come back.

The minutes tick past and Yaz starts to shiver with the sweat cooling on her skin exposed to the air of the room, and tells herself firmly that’s the only reason she’s shaking so hard.

When at least a quarter of an hour has passed and it becomes apparent that she’s not going to return, Yaz is still trembling violently, her breathing quickening and that panic inside her is threatening to grip a hold of her -

_No._

She squashes all of it firmly down, taking a deep shuddering breath and resolving that she would just have to get herself out of this.

She’d been trained for situations like this. Well... not exactly like this, it wasn’t really assumed that the reason she might find herself trapped and tied up was that her lover done so and forgotten to release her before she left... but the end result was the same.

The first thing to do was relax. Tense muscles meant tighter bonds. With her wrists relaxed, she is able to twist her arms so they cross, and manages to roll over onto her stomach and then shuffle up onto her knees until she’s kneeling, sitting back on her heels by the pillows so she can look down at the knot.

It’s not a complicated knot, the cloth is just wrapped round quite a few times, and taking a moment to breath, Yaz focuses on relaxing her arms further until she can wiggle her hands round and get her fingers beneath the first loop.

It’s a struggle, and the cloth cuts into her wrists with the strain, but she manages to get herself untied, breathing out a sigh of relief when she finally pulls her arms free.

\--

She finds the Doctor with the boys in one of the Tardis’s little kitchens the next morning, the smell of bacon beckoning her in.

“Morning Yaz!” The Doctor’s voice chirps brightly when she appears, and Yaz feels her stomach leap a bit, heart beginning to pound.

She had gone to her own room after she’d managed to release herself the night before, stumbling into a quick hot shower before she’d curled up in bed. Exhausted as she was, she hadn’t slept for hours, hoping that every noise, every creak in the corridor outside her room was the Doctor coming to say sorry for leaving her like that.

But she never did.

Yaz eyes her warily now, carefully searching her fact for any signs of regret. All she sees is a bright grin as she sits at the table opposite Ryan, Graham cooking across the room.

“Look what Graham made!” the Doctor holds up her plate for Yaz to see the toast, eggs and bacon arranged in a smiley face.

Yaz swallows and forces a smile. “Nice,” she comments, crossing the room to sit down carefully beside her.

“Hungry Yaz? There’s plenty,” Graham says over her shoulder and she smiles, nodding eagerly, and Graham turns back to the frying pan.

Ryan seems to be happily stuffing his face, eyes glued to his phone in his free hand, and Yaz takes the opportunity to reach out to touch the Doctor’s hip gently under the table, making her turn to face her. “Do you feel better today?” She asks her quietly, and she nods, offering her a small smile.

“Yeah. Thanks for... you know,” she replies, just as quiet.

“Anytime,” she replies automatically, earning her one of those brilliant smiles that make her inside feel like air.   

Ryan finishes his plate and gets up to cross the kitchen and dump it in the sink and the Doctor places her hand over Yaz’s on her hip.

“I don’t know what I ever did without you.”

Yaz’s heart flutters and she smiles back at her softly.

She doesn’t even mention the fact that she’d left her tied to her bed; she obviously really had just forgotten.

It wasn’t her fault, Yaz _knows_ she’d never do something like that on purpose - she’d just been upset over the daleks. She thinks back to that night when the Doctor had cried in her arms, confiding in her about the death of her planet - she couldn’t make much out but she knows she’d heard the word dalek mumbled in there more than once, and it’s enough to know that losing her own people had something to do with them.

The Doctor’s hand moves back to her plate and Yaz withdraws her own, bringing both hands up to curl around the steaming mug Graham places in front of her on the table.

Her eyes catch the marks on her wrists and she quickly tugs her sleeves down over them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well if you haven’t run away now I guess we’ll be ok.. 
> 
> Although I'm portraying a pretty dark side to the Doctor I really want her to still be believable; she's still meant to be the same person we know I'm just exploring the side of her that hasn't been shown but may be there underneath, a result of all the buried trauma from two thousand years of the sort of life she's lead. I hope it's coming across that way anyway. I also really hope you guys didn't hate this, I know the second to last scene was a lot (hopefully not too much)
> 
> There's either one or two more chapters to go, depending on how long it turns out. I live to hear your thoughts! Especially with something like this otherwise I’ll just assume everyone hates it and me and never write anything this dark again haha 😬


	4. Chapter 4

“Doctor,” Yaz says in surprise when she swings the door open. “Thought you were picking us up tonight?"

“Yep,” she nods, rocking back on her heels, hands shoved into her pockets. “Seems I got the am and pm a bit round the wrong way. Now the Tardis isn’t budging. You know she hates short hops. So I thought I’d just come get you early!”

Yaz is smiling in amusement but shakes her head, leaning against the door frame. “I can’t go now, I’ve got work today.”

The Doctors face falls. “Oh.” It lights up again. “What if I just drop you back right after we leave?”

“Sorry, no way,” Yaz chuckles, “no offence but I don’t trust your driving enough not to make me miss work.”

“Oi!”

“Doctor,” she says, folding her arms, “You’ve literally just told me you’ve landed twelve hours out.”

She looks down with a pout, looking unbearably disappointed.

Yaz glances hesitantly back inside. “You can… come in for a bit though if you want?” She says and the Doctors face immediately brightens. “I have to leave for my shift in a couple of hours but I was just -“

“Yes!” She cuts her off, flying past her into the flat. “Hi Yaz’s mum - Najia!” The Doctor calls out as she bounces in.

“She’s out,” Yaz says, closing the door behind her. “Everyone’s out, just me.”

“Oh.”

“I was just making breakfast. Wanna do the teas?”

“Yes, making tea! I’m good at making tea. Do you have any biscuits?”

The Doctor stands next to Yaz in her little kitchen ten minutes later, chattering on about the time she’d met King James the nineteenth and saved him from a giant moth invasion while she butters toast and Yaz stirs teas (she’d had to take the kettle off the Doctor when she tried to pour milk in it) and everything feels almost wonderfully domestic. She can almost imagine, like this, what it might be like to be with her properly. Mornings in her flat, making breakfast with her by her side… she sighs, chiding herself for the fantasy.

“And then I said - well if you didn’t want them in why did you leave the windows open? And then - arghh,” she cuts off, giving a sound of frustration as she struggles to get the lid off the jam jar. She goes to use her teeth and Yaz rolls her eyes, grabbing it off her and popping the lid off, handing her back the open jar.

“Thanks! So King James was really cross by then but that was _nothing_ compared to the king of the moths…”

Yaz glances round at her when she notices she’s trailed off, and sees her eyes fixed on her legs. She comes down off her tiptoes where she’d stretched up for the sugar from the cupboard and sets it down.

“Doctor?”

The Doctor blinks, snapping her eyes up to Yaz’s. “Sorry - got distracted there… are you wearing anything underneath that dressing gown?”

Pleased to have caused such distraction, Yaz shoots her a cheeky smirk. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” She reaches for a spoon for the sugar, but finds it snatched off her and tossed aside, and quickly finds herself spun in the Doctor’s arms and pressed back against the countertop.

“I would actually,” the Doctor smirks before leaning in to kiss her.

Moaning softly, Yaz winds her arms up around her lover’s neck, squeaking in surprise when the Doctor grips her by the hips and hoists her up to sit on the counter. Her hands dive greedily beneath her dressing gown and Yaz smiles into the kiss when she makes a sound of disappointment at the material of the old tshirt Yaz had slept in there.

The Doctor’s kisses move downwards and Yaz tilts her head to the side to give her access to her neck. As she does her eyes land on the chopping board on the counter beside her and suddenly she’s sharply reminded of the conversation with her mum the evening before.

She’d been helping her cook, chopping up vegetables while her mum stirred sauce, and Yaz had leant over for another potato just as her mum reached into the drawer and her eyes had landed on Yaz’s wrist as her sleeve had ridden up.

“Bloody hell Yaz!” He mum had suddenly exclaimed, grabbing her arm. “How on earth did you get those marks?”

Stomach dropping, Yaz had yanked away her hand, quickly pulling her sleeves down over her wrists. “Oh uhh… it was, um, a work thing,” she mumbled, turning away to grab the plates out of the cupboard.

“A work -!? What kind of work thing would cause this!?” She’d grabbed her arm again, pushing her sleeve up and Yaz snatched it back.

“Mum, can you just -”

“What’s going on - woah where did you get those!?”

“None of your business,” Yaz snapped at Sonya who had appeared in the kitchen.

“No, Yasmin, you explain this to me right now,” her mum said firmly, and Yaz huffed.

“Look it was just - training.”

“ _Training_?”

“Yeah, you know - handcuffs - how to arrest someone properly,” she’d lied quickly. “We were practising on each other.”

“Looks like someone took it a bit too seriously,” Sonya interjected, staring at Yaz’s wrists. She yanked her sleeves down again.

“Yeah, I think you need to speak to HR about something like this Yaz - that can’t be right,” her mum frowned, turning back to the dinner.

“It’s fine mum, we were just messing around, everyone got marks.” Her gaze caught her sister’s who was staring at her with narrowed eyes. “What?” She’d muttered, and shoved past her out of the kitchen.

“Come on then, spill,” Sonya had said a short while later, appearing in the doorway of her bedroom with a little smirk on her lips. “How’d you really get those marks?” She wiggled her eyebrows at her. “Was it something kinky?”

To Yaz’s horror, she’d burst into tears.

Sonya had looked as shocked as Yaz felt, and thankfully she’d gone when Yaz had told her she was just tired and to piss off and leave her alone, hating that she was crying in front of her sister, but the reaction had startled her.

She _was_ tired. So tired of holding all of this inside her, of supporting herself _and_ the Doctor when the emotional burden weighed heavily on her heart.

She still feels guilty about lying to her mum - but what was she supposed to say? _Oh, those marks round my wrist? Well the woman I’m sleeping with had a bad day, and forgot that she’d tied me to her bed while we were having sex so I had to force my hands out myself after she left..._

Yeah, lying was definitely the best option in this situation.  

Yaz tries to shake the memory as the Doctor’s kisses move down over her collarbone and chest, hands pulling open her dressing gown, but she can’t rid herself of the uncomfortable feeling, and when the Doctor leans in, and takes Yaz’s hands in her own, pinning them to the counter either side of her she feels her stomach flip, and quickly snatches them back.

“What?” The Doctor pauses to blink at her.

“Umm… sorry. Just… wanted to touch you,” she finishes weakly, leaning in to slide her hands beneath the Doctor’s coat.

She grins at her. “You can touch me all you want in a minute,” she promises hotly, “but first…” she lets the sentence trail off, opening Yaz’s dressing gown fully and sliding her hands up over bare thighs. She’s only wearing a pair of knickers besides the oversized tshirt, and the Doctor’s fingers curl into the top of her underwear, her eyes holding Yaz’s own, so dark with desire it makes Yaz whimper, and she lifts her hips obediently to let her drag them down her legs.

Her hands curl beneath the backs of Yaz’s knees, and she tugs her to her, easing her legs apart so she can step between them. Yaz bites her lip, entranced by the lust swirling in her hazel eyes as she feels a hand stroke up her inner thigh and dip between her legs.

She circles her clit with the pads of her fingers without breaking the gaze, stroking her until she’s gasping little needy sounds, hands gripping tightly to her shirt, and then she eases two fingers inside her, leaning in to press her open mouth to her neck as Yaz’s eyes flutter shut.

Dear god but she was talented at that… Yaz loved moments like this best, when the Doctor was calm and her movements considered and precise. She touched her like she knew she could make her come apart in minutes, and, Yaz quickly realised, it looked like that was what was about to happen now.

Letting out a cry, she opens her eyes and they meet the Doctor’s again as she works her closer to the edge. She hadn’t looked at her last time… when she’d thrust the toy into her hard and deep over and over her and Yaz had been pinned beneath her with her hands bound, she hadn’t met her eyes once, and Yaz doesn’t know why that comes back to her then so vividly, but suddenly she is plummeting away from the edge she’d been to close to, the orgasm gone like a wave she hadn’t caught.

The Doctor’s fingers keep working her, and she bites her lip and tries to give in to the pleasure again, knowing that’s what she wanted from her…  but every time she feels the heat in the pit of her belly start to build, she remembers her hands trapped above her head, remembers shivering in the cold of the room and the way the Doctor had been so deep inside her it had made tears sting in her eyes and suddenly the heat is gone again.

“Come on,” the Doctor mutters, pushing another finger inside her, “I want you to come for me.”

Yaz nods, biting down on her lip hard. She tries. She really does try to let all her thoughts go and surrender to the stimulation between her legs, but it’s no use, and after another few minutes she gently catches the Doctor’s wrist, shaking her head.

“I can’t,” she whispers, wishing she could just fake it so it would be less awkward for both of them. “I’m sorry.”

The Doctor opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, then withdraws her fingers, stepping back and looking around for something to wipe her hand on.

“I’m sorry Doctor,” she says again, sliding off the countertop and pulling her dressing gown closed around her.

“It’s okay Yaz,” she says quietly, washing her hands under the tap. She shoves her dry hand through her hair, and then turns back to look at her. Her face is open and anxious.

“Have I…” Yaz sees her swallow. “Have I done something wrong?”

“What?” Yaz squeaks, utterly startled by the question and the worry on her face.

“You’d tell me if I had, wouldn’t you?”

Yaz inhales sharply. She considers. She really, deeply considers voicing everything she’s feeling inside… but what would she even _say?_ And _how_ … it wasn’t as if the Doctor had purposefully done anything to her - it wasn’t like she even knew... the half of it - and she is staring at her with such anxious, worried eyes, watching her like a few words could break her apart and Yaz can’t bear the look on her face.

“You haven’t,” she shakes her head quickly.

The Doctor frowns, tilts her head.

“Then why…”

“I don’t know,” she says, cheeks reddening as she looks down. “I don’t know, I’m just - things are pretty stressful at work and I just keep thinking about my shift…”

“Oh. Why... didn’t you say?”

She shrugs. “I’m sorry,” she says, feeling awkward and guilty.

“It’s okay,” The Doctor gives her a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Don’t worry about it.” She steps back, tugging her clothes straight. “I should go, yeah? You’ve gotta get ready for work.”

“Wait - don’t you want me to… do something for you?”

“Nah, it’s fine. Mood’s kind of gone to be honest.”

Yaz flushes. “Sorry,” she mumbles again.

“It’s fine Yaz, just one of those things,” she says, but she looks upset, unable to meet her eyes and Yaz feels guilty to her core.

\--

When one of her colleagues calls in sick for his night shift that evening and Yaz gets asked to pull a double, she automatically goes to say no, thinking of her plans with the Doctor, but stops herself, considering it.

She’d never declined a trip with them before… but if she’s being honest with herself, the offer to work a double shift gives her the perfect excuse to get out of having to face the Doctor tonight when she still feels unbearably awkward about what had happened between them earlier. And she’s felt anxious all day about the possibility of the Doctor wanting her again tonight, and Yaz still not being able to give her what she needed.

She looks up at her boss with firm nod. “Yeah. I can work tonight.”

The night is long and Yaz yawns her way through most of it. It’s a little past five in the morning when she gets the girl she’d picked up breaking into a jewelry store back to the station, stepping outside with her accompanying officer after taking her statement.

She looks terrified, and Yaz can see under the flourescent lights of the station that beneath the thick layer of makeup, she’s a lot younger than she’d first assumed.

“Well, I think that’s all we’re going to get from her tonight,” says her superior, Liam. “You can type this up then call it a night Yaz.”

“What?” Yaz frowns. “Aren’t we going to try and find whoever she was working with?”

“You heard her - she was on her own.”

“You don’t really believe that do you?”

“Do you have reason not to?”

“Look at her!” Yaz points through the one-way glass where the girl sits on a chair. “She’s not more than 5’2 and that shelf she got the watch from was over 7ft high.”

Liam blinks, staring at the girl. “Well... she probably climbed up.”

“Climbed what?” Yaz shuffles through the papers in her hands, shoving a photograph they’d taken of the crime scene under his nose. “There’s no chairs, nothing in the shop she could have used.”

“She probably climbed the shelf itself then.”

“And left everything undisturbed?”

Liam sighs, shoving a hand through his hair. “Maybe she’s a really good climber.”

Yaz is not deterred. “In those heels? It would be a miracle she hadn’t broken her neck.”

“Well - maybe she took them off!”

She can see he’s getting annoyed but so is she - determined to stand her ground she plunges on. “There wasn’t enough time - the security footage from outside that showed her entering and leaving gave her a three minute window to make the theft. There is no way she’d have been able to get inside, take her shoes off, climb to the top of those shelves and back down then get them back on and outside!”

“Yaz,” he sighs, “Stop looking too deeply into this; the case is closed. We’re all tired and ready to go home - what are you doing?”

Ignoring him, Yaz steps back into the room, grabbing her phone out of her pocket.

“Yaz -”

She holds up a hand, bringing up the timer on her phone and standing in front of the girl.

“Can you take your shoes off please madam?”

“My...shoes?”

Yaz nods. “Quick as you can please.”

Looking confused, the girl bends to do as she’s asked, unbuckling the straps on her high heels and unwinding them from her legs one at a time before kicking them both off.

She looks up at Yaz. “Okay?”

She nods. “Put them back on please. Nice and quick.”

Giving her an odd look, she does so. The straps are complex and the buckles fiddly, and she fumbles a little, hands noticeably shaky, before she manages to have them done back up and sits up straight.

Yaz stops the timer on her phone and turns to Liam with it held up, triumphant.

\--

It doesn’t take long to find out who she’d been working with once they look back at security footage from the area - a young man is spotted entering the shop a short while before she gets there, and then can be seen on another street camera to the rear of the building, having evidently climbed out a back window. When they bring him in the girl bursts into tears and tells Yaz how her boyfriend had talked her into helping him, even though she’d never wanted to steal anything.

“Then why did you go through with it?” Yaz frowns across the table at her.

“I don’t know,” she wails miserably, “Because I love him I guess. Haven’t you ever done something you didn’t want to for somebody because you loved them?”

Yaz’s reply sticks in her throat, and suddenly the interrogation room is too stuffy, too hot and she gets to her feet, excusing herself hastily before bursting from the room and out the nearest fire door to gulp in air.

 _It’s not the same, it’s not the same,_ she tells herself, letting the early morning air cool her burning skin. It isn’t like she’d ever done anything bad for the Doctor - the Doctor was _good_. But what’s rattled her is how deeply she understands the young girl, because she knows that whatever the Doctor asked her to do… she’d probably do it.

But it wasn’t the same - the Doctor didn’t _know_ Yaz loved her - that no-good little thug they’d brought into the station was using his girlfriend’s feelings to manipulate her deliberately. The Doctor was good. _It wasn’t the same_.

“Yaz? You alright?”

“Yeah,” she turns nod at Liam as he steps out after her. “Sorry - just… felt kind of dizzy. Think I’m just tired.”

He glances at his watch. “Well you have been up nearing twenty-four hours about now I expect. Go home,” he says, “We can finish up here.”

“Okay,” she nods gratefully.

“But before you go - chief wants to see you in his office.”

She goes, hands sweating when she knocks on his door nervously.

“Yasmin,” he looks up from his desk and motions to the door. “Come in, please. And don’t worry,” he smiles at her, “You’re not in trouble.”

\--

“A promotion?”

“Yeah,” Yaz nods at Ryan from her seat on the low wall outside her flats next to him. “A… pretty good one. It would basically allow me to skip about two years.”

“Yaz - that’s amazing,” he bumps her shoulder with his own. “Congrats.”

Yaz lets out a sigh.

“You don’t seem very happy?”

“Because I’m not sure if I should take it.”

“What?” He laughs. “You’re joking right? Why wouldn’t you?”

“Because, Ryan.” Another sigh. “It’s… longer hours, more demanding assignments… it’s… not the kind of job I could easily pick up and put down,” she explains, knowing he’ll understand what she means. “I’d need to give it everything.”

He nods slowly. “You mean… give up travelling. With us.”

She looks down. “Yeah. Not - not completely. I could never do that. But I couldn’t be spending more time on the Tardis than in real life like we are now. It wouldn’t work.”

“Well…” He seems confused, “that would be fine wouldn’t it? Just like - come with us at weekends or something? Or you know - whenever you want to. We’ll miss you, but we’ll cope,” he bumps her shoulder again playfully and she smiles, but shakes her head.

After a moment when she doesn’t reply, he sighs.

“It’s the Doctor, isn’t it?”

Yaz nods.

“I don’t know if I can leave her,” she whispers.

“You won’t be leaving her - like I said - weekends, holidays - long weekends... it’s still a time machine Yaz.”

“But I wouldn’t be there more than I would.”

“She’ll be fine.”

“What if she’s not though,” she glances at him, biting her lip. “What if _I’m_ not… I don’t know if I’m ready… to leave.”

Ryan is silent for a moment before he speaks quietly. “You love her, don’t you?”

Sighing, Yaz nods. “So much,” she whispers. “How could I not… she’s amazing.”

“Yeah I know,” Ryan replies quietly. “I think everyone who meets her falls half in love. She has that kind of… aura. It draws you in,” he says and Yaz nods.

“You know she’s not human though, right?”

“I don’t care,” Yaz shakes her head firmly.

“No, I mean… like is she capable of even feeling the same way? I know she looks like us… but she’s not Yaz.” He shakes his head, a frown on his face as he looks out at the street ahead. “You didn’t see her the night we met, when she was passed out on nan’s sofa all… glowing.”

_“Glowing?”_

“Yeah, and like breathing out these strange gold things…” he shrugs, folding his arms around himself. “It was weird, man.” He turns to frown at her. “She’s an alien.”

“I know,” Yaz nods. “I know she is.”

“And I think she’s a lot older than she looks too. I also think… there’s probably a lot about her we don’t know - because she don’t tell us. Have you noticed that? How she never talks about herself - except for stupid stories that mostly don’t make sense.”

Yaz shifts on the wall, frowning a little at what Ryan was implying about her. “She’s told me a little,” she says quietly. “She’s been through a lot Ryan.”

“Like what?”

Yaz shakes her head. “It’s not my place to pass on. But… she carries a lot of pain with her. Any normal person would have gone mad with it by now.”

“She aint a normal person though, is she?”

“No,” Yaz sighs, and a companionable silence falls between them.

“Come on then,” Ryan finally says. “She said she’s gonna pick us up from grandad’s about three.”

Yaz nods, standing from the wall. She places a hand on his arm. “Don’t tell her, please. I need to decide what to do first.”

Ryan shrugs. “I won’t say anything - but for the record, I think you’d be stupid not to take it.”

“Yeah,” Yaz replies quietly, but still doesn’t feel convinced.

\--

This wasn’t the first time she’d been captured while travelling with the Doctor, nor was it the first time her captor had tied her up.

She and Ryan had been tied back to back to chairs once, legs and arms bound tightly leaving little room for movement, and it had been several hours until the Doctor had managed to break in and rescue them. They’d passed the time playing eye spy.

So why does Yaz feel utter panic gripping hold of her now as she tugs at the ropes that hold her arms up above her head again and again, knowing they were tightening with every struggle but unable to stop herself from frantically trying to get free?

She shouldn’t have gone off by herself. The Doctor had told her it was dangerous - but that was Yaz, always too determined to do more and too stubborn to listen to anyone but herself when she got that in her head - and she’d thought the little boy she’d seen a glimpse of trapped on the other side of the bridge had needed help.

He hadn’t been trapped at all, nor had he been a boy, instead a short, stout man belonging to one of the indigenous tribes the Doctor had warned them protected the jungles on this planet fiercely.

She’d also mentioned something about cannibalism and now Yaz _really_ wishes she’d paid closer attention to that. Although was it even considered cannibalism if they were aliens? It didn’t really matter much, did it? Being eaten wasn’t an impending situation you wanted hanging over you no matter what you labelled it as.

Ther ropes cut into her wrists, the newly healed skin there soft and delicate, and Yaz knows she’s tearing it open as she struggles and struggles but she doesn’t _care_ , she just _needs_ to get out. All logical thought has left her as she desperately tries to her force her hands through the ropes, her breath coming quickly, fear welling inside her as she realises with every yank that she’s well and truly trapped.

She isn’t there long. Minutes… twenty at the most, but by the time she hears a familiar voice call her name she’s on the verge of a complete breakdown, utterly exhausted from struggling and almost at the point of hyperventilating.

The Doctor appears on the other side of the rickety rope bridge, followed by Ryan and Graham and everything in Yaz breaks.

“Doctor!”

“ _Yaz!”_ She sprints towards her across the bridge and Yaz gasps, tears coming hot and heavy now as relief floods through her.

“Doctor!” She cries, “Untie me, please untie me, I can’t -”

She’s almost reached her when suddenly about ten of the tribesmen leap out from the bushes surrounding Yaz, and one jumps forward to the bridge, an axe raised over the ropes holding it together and the Doctor freezes.

“Not so fast,” he grins cruelly. “I was hoping we would cross paths again one day, _Doctor_.”

“What have you done to Yaz?” She hears the Doctor demanding, eyes flickering between her and the little tribesman, “why is she so upset!?”

The man glances at Yaz. “I don’t know,” He frowns, like it’s an annoyance, “We haven’t done anything yet - just tied her there for you to find.” A cruel smirk tugs up the corners of his lips, “Which you have.”

They exchange words, but Yaz can’t hear the most of it, the blood rushing in her ears and her head spinning as she tries to get control of herself and calm her breathing because its _okay_ , the Doctor is only meters away from her and she’s going to untie her and then she’ll be fine. She tugs desperately at the ropes again, that trapped feeling swelling and feels more tears spill down her cheeks.

“Yaz! Yaz, look at me!” She hears the Doctor saying, and looks at her through blurry vision. “You’re fine. I’m going to get you out of there, I promise.”

“You should never make promises you can’t keep Doctor,” the tribesman taunts. “She defended you fiercely, you know.”

“Yeah, well… my friends are loyal like that. Shame you wouldn’t know what that was like.”

“She’s a fool,” he says, “And now she’s going to pay for speaking such words against our greatest enemy.” He motions to another of the men who starts moving towards Yaz with a knife raised.

“No!” The Doctor rages, “Let her go, it’s me you want! It’s not her fault she just fell in love with the wrong person!”

The Doctor seems to realise what she’s said at the exact moment Yaz does, and their eyes lock, equally as wide, before the Doctor quickly snaps hers away, back at the tribesman.

The blood is rushing louder in Yaz’s ears, she feels dizzy, everything is going blurry, and the man is moving towards the bridge with his axe, and she knows, she knows, _she knows..._

The bridge snaps, the Doctor plummets with it, Yaz screams, and everything goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't write action to save my life so I'm sorry about this last scene. I tried to wiggle round it with vague descriptions but it kind of needed to all be present to have the right impact... Also, don't believe me whenever I tell you how long a fic is going to be... there's two more for definite after this one. The next one is going to be pretty heavy so hopefully this was a bit of an easier read between that and the last to break it up.
> 
> I sooo appreciate all the thoughtful insightful comments so far! This is tough one, but your words and thoughts and opinions are keeping me writing, and they also help me a lot with figuring how to put forward certain things. So thank you... and please let me know if I'm still doing okay!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a very brief scene in this chapter that definitely leans more towards non-con than dub-con (although it's not what you're thinking) but it's not too bad I promise, if you've read this far you'll be fine I just thought I should give you a heads up.

“Yaz! Yaz, wake up man, come on…”

“Hold on, give her some room I think she’s coming round…”

When Yaz comes to to the voices of Graham and Ryan, she gasps, sitting upright and frantically raising her hands to her face.

“It’s alright. You’re safe,” Ryan tells her gently, and she breathes out a sigh of relief as she takes in her very sore, but free wrists.

The image of the bridge snapping and the Doctor plummeting with it comes rushing back and she gasps, clutching at Ryan in horror.

“The Doctor -!?”

“I’m here,” comes a blessedly familiar, if quiet voice, and Yaz whips her head round to see the Doctor hovering nearby, watching her warily. “How are you feeling?”

“Weird,” she answers, letting Ryan help her to her feet. “What happened?”

“The Doc proved she’s got nine lives,” Graham answers. “She leapt across and grabbed the other side of the bridge as it fell. Then clawed her way up. I tell you - I’ve never seen anything like it. You should have seen the look on old war-paint’s face.”

She frowns, trying to piece together what had happened. She feels weird, like something is wrong, but her head is still fuzzy.

“Did I… get knocked out or something?” She tries to make sense of the way she feels as Ryan carefully helps her to her feet.

“Ehh,” he says, “You sort of… fainted.”

“Oh,” she mumbles. “I’ve never fainted before.”

“Lack of oxygen,” the Doctor answers, still standing several feet away from her. “You were hyperventilating... It can happen.”

“Oh,” another mumble, and she looks down with a frown. “Sorry.”

“Hey, you’re fine,” Ryan nudges her. “I’d have been freaking out if some crazy cannibals had tied me to the end of a bridge too. They’re gone by the way. The Doctor scared them off proper when she ‘climbed back up from hell’ - apparently that’s what they thought anyway.”

Yaz smiles but she can’t shake the feeling that something’s not right. She’d been tied up… and she knows she’d panicked - and then the Doctor had been there, and she remembers relief flooding her as she sprinted towards her - and then the tribesmen had all jumped out, and then…

She gasps, almost choking on a mouthful of air, and her wide eyes snap over to the Doctor’s.

The Doctor looks back at her quietly, and Yaz sees her swallow.

“Umm,” the Doctor averts her gaze, pointing up ahead through the jungle. “We should get back to the Tardis. It’ll be dark soon - and believe me we do _not_ want to be in these woods when night falls. You should see the size of the bugs that come out. If one of these flying ants with red wings bites you...”

Yaz doesn’t care about the bugs. She doesn’t care about _anything_ at that moment except the woman standing six feet away who’d pulled apart everything she believed about her.

She stalks over to her, and the Doctor trails off and stands up straighter like she wants to back away, but stands her ground as Yaz stops in front of her.

“How long have you known?” Yaz’s voice is trembling with the effort to keep from screaming at her.

She looks like she’s going to try and pretend she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but quickly drops that idea, swallowing hard.

“Not long,” she says quickly, eyes avoiding hers.

“Liar! How long!?”

“A… while…”

Yaz steps closer, barely resisting the urge to shove her angrily. “ _How_ . _Long?”_

“Since…” she finally looks up, eyes meeting hers. “...after Jurassic Planet,” she mumbles.

“Oh god.” Yaz turns away from her, feeling sick. She concentrates on taking deep breaths, bending over as nausea wells inside her. _She knew_. This whole time… she knew. Almost every single time they’d been together, she thought the Doctor just assumed it was a mutual sexual thing. But she knew how Yaz felt about her all along, and she’d still used her like that.

She supposes that’s what made her so easy.

She feels a gentle hand on her shoulder and jumps, snapping her head round but relaxing when she realises it’s Ryan.

“Come on Yaz,” he says softly, “I’ve got you.”

She walks with him back to the Tardis, glad of the arm around her shoulders. None of them speak - the Doctor tries to make forced cheerful conversation a couple of times, commenting on the planet’s foliage and how you could make the best soup from the tree’s sap, but when nobody replies to her, even Graham (Yaz feels embarrassed to her core when she realises that this means it’s likely _everyone_ knew what had been going on between her and the Doctor) she gives up, falling silent as she strides ahead, leading the way back.

She feels stupid, and foolish. And she simultaneously wants to grab the Doctor by the lapels of her coat and shake her, and run as far away from her as she can. She _hates_ her.

But the longer they walk, the initial rage caused by being hurt fades, and Yaz starts to think logically about the situation. Did she have a right to be angry, really? It’s not like… the Doctor ever mislead her. She was clear about what she wanted from Yaz and it isn’t like she’d purposefully tried to manipulate her feelings…

When it came right down to it, Yaz was just embarrassed. So painfully, utterly mortified that she’d been so helplessly obvious this whole time. She should have told Yaz that she was aware of her feelings… but maybe the Doctor was embarrassed too. It’s not like… she could force herself to love Yaz back. And it’s not like she’d _made_ Yaz fall for her in the first place.

She feels exhausted by the time they make it back to the Tardis, and trudges into the console room, shooting Ryan a grateful smile as he lets go of her.

The Doctor pilots them away, then looks up at Yaz, the intensity in her gaze making Yaz’s foolish heart skip a beat.

“Yaz… can I talk to you?” Her eyes flicker to the boys. “In private?”

Knowing what that means, her heart sinks and she almost says no, but the Doctor’s hazel eyes are wide and anxious, and Yaz feels herself give in, dropping her gaze and nodding resignedly.

She’d already taken everything from her, what was the point in refusing her now?

Inside her room, the Doctor closes the door behind them, and Yaz takes a breath before shucking her coat, hands moving to quickly unbutton her shirt.

“Yaz,” the Doctor says quickly, stilling her hands with her own. “Wait - what are you doing?”

She yanks her hands away, undoing the rest of the buttons and letting the shirt drop to the floor, reaching round to unclip her bra.

“What?” She says, angrily swallowing down the lump in her throat. “This is all you want from me, isn’t it?”

“No - Yaz stop,” she tries to take her hands again but she snatches them away, unbuttoning her jeans. “Yaz - stop it!”

The Doctor bends to pick up her shirt, attempting to put it back round Yasmin’s shoulders but she shrugs her off, kicking off her jeans and sliding her knickers down her legs until she stands naked before her. She walks forward, pushing the Doctor back into the door behind her and dropping quickly to her knees in front of her.

“Yaz, stop this,” she says firmly, shaking her head.  

“Why?” She says, unbuttoning the Doctor’s trousers hastily. “You want me don’t you? At least like this you want me…”

Peeling them and her underwear down her legs, Yaz leans in, hands gripping her hips to bring her mouth to her, plunging her tongue into her sex, lapping quickly at her clit and hearing the Doctor gasp above her, hands flying to her hair.

 _Yeah,_ she thinks bitterly, as the Doctor lets out a groan and her fingers curl in her hair, _just as I thought._

Surprisingly though, a moment later her hands tighten in her hair and she tugs at it, trying to pull her mouth away from her.

“Stop it Yaz, that’s not -”

Yaz grabs the Doctor’s wrists in her hands, yanking them from her hair and pinning them to the door beside her hips, frustration rising in her chest as she plunges her tongue further into the Doctor’s folds, desperate to be something, _anything_ for her. She grows slick and hot against her mouth and her hips jolt towards her but she squirms in her grasp, trying to yank her wrists free.

“Yaz, let go!”

“Why are you trying to push me away?” Yaz is crying now, nails digging into the Doctor’s wrists as she firmly holds them in place. “I thought you wanted me like this…”

“I do - just not -” She cuts off with a gasp when Yaz latches her mouth onto the Doctor’s clit again, and she holds her tighter against the door. “Yaz,” she gasps, and suddenly goes limp in her grasp, ceasing her struggles, “you’re hurting me…”

 _Good_ , she thinks somewhere in a part of her head that scares her the second she acknowledges it, and she gasps, suddenly realising what she’s doing and releases the Doctor, flying back and falling onto her backside on the floor. She stares up at her, eyes wide as the Doctor yanks her trousers back up, movements quick and jerky and eyes frustrated.

Yaz swallows hard. “Doctor I’m sorry, I didn’t mean -”

“It’s alright,” she mutters, rubbing at her wrists where Yaz can see little red crescent marks from her fingernails and guilt wells inside her. “It’s just - sex isn’t going to solve this,” she sounds frustrated and despite the situation, Yaz can’t help the sharp laugh that escapes her.

“Really? That coming from you?”

She opens her mouth and closes it again, like the statement has confused her. She shakes her head, and reaches down to help Yaz to her feet, quickly passing her her shirt again.

“Get dressed. Please,” she says.

“Why?” She sniffs, wiping at her cheeks. “Thought you preferred me with my clothes off.”

Something flickers across her face, and her eyes are sad when she shakes her head tenseley. “Please Yaz.”

Taking her shirt hesitantly from her, eyes warily on hers, Yaz throws it on, not bothering to button it up, instead snatching her knickers from the Doctor as she hands those to her next and yanking those on too, before crossing the room to sit down on her bed. She folds her arms around herself.

“If you don’t want to fuck me what do you want?”

She shifts on her feet, avoiding Yaz’s eyes. “To apologise,” she mumbles.

Yaz hugs herself tighter. “For what?”

“For not… being honest about the fact that I knew how you felt.” She snaps her gaze up, eyes meeting Yaz’s. “I knew you loved me. Were in love, probably…” she says and Yazs cheeks burn. “That’s what made you so irresistible.”

Her breath catches in her throat. “What?” She utters in disbelief.

She sighs, moving carefully across the room to her. “You’re so… kind and good and wonderful and you make me feel… ” she pauses for a moment, as if struggling for the right word. “Anchored. Justified.” Another pause, and Yaz frowns, struggling to understand what she means.

“But now I can see that it’s been hurting you… why didn’t you _say_ anything Yaz?” She shakes her head, eyes wide and sad. “You never said anything - you knew - I made it perfectly clear after that first time that it would never be anything else - and you never refused me, not once. I thought… you were okay with it. You never showed that it was hurting you.” Standing in front of her now, she lifts a hand to cup Yaz’s face gently. “You’re so strong. I thought you could handle it.” She looks down. “I assumed too much. I’m so sorry.”

Yaz lifts a hand to cover the Doctor’s on her cheek.

She opens her mouth to tell her it’s okay. She almost does. But something inside her is still burning with hurt and rage that the Doctor had known about her feelings all this time and used them for what she wanted.

She grabs her wrist and shoves her away, shaking her head. “You thought I could _handle it?_ So it was okay to use my feelings to make yourself feel better because I’m tough enough to take it?” She frowns at her, shaking her head and shuffling backwards onto the bed away from her. “That’s not the way you treat your friends Doctor.”

“I know,” she has the decency to look ashamed, dropping her gaze.

“You used me.”

“I know. I know I did. And I’m sorry.” She risks a glance up at Yaz. “I never meant to hurt you?”

Yaz frowns. “But you did.”

A silence fills the room, the tension in the air thick and uncomfortable.

When the Doctor finally breaks it, Yaz can’t quite believe what she’s hearing.

“I just don’t understand... why you kept doing it?”

“I -” She blinks at her.  “What?”

The Doctor is frowning at her - there’s confusion on her face but also a hint of frustration that raises Yaz’s hackles up.

“It takes two people to make love Yaz, why would you -”

“ _Make love!?”_ She can’t help but blurt out with a sharp, disbelieving angry laugh.  “You’re seriously calling what we did -”

“ _Fuck_ , then,” she spits out irritably, cheeks noticeably red, and Yaz is glad she’s embarrassed. “The point is, if it was causing you pain why would you keep coming to me?”

Yaz almost chokes. “I - you - we - you told me to! It’s not like I was initiating it -” her voice is rising, temper flaring.

“No but you weren’t saying no either.”

“Because - you needed me!” She splutters.

“So that’s the only reason?” Yaz opens her mouth to protest but the Doctor plunges on; “No; you wanted me Yaz, you said so, and you - it never seemed like you had a problem with it - you knew where we stood and I’d have noticed if you weren’t comfortable with it -”

“Oh what like you noticed when you fucked me and left me tied to your fucking bed after we fought the daleks!? Or like you noticed how much you hurt me the first time when you took my _fucking virginity!?_ ” Yaz is panting when she’s finished yelling the words at her, heart racing with the anger that’s been building in her chest, and the Doctor is staring at her like she’d slapped her.

“What?” She whispers back hoarsely after an uncomfortable pause.

Unable to bear the way her hazel eyes are staring at her, wide and anxious and hurting, Yaz looks away. She pulls the shirt tightly round her, suddenly feeling chilly in the warm room.

“You -” The Doctor’s voice comes out in a hoarse squeak and she cuts off, clearing her throat before speaking again. “You were a virgin?”

The absolute shock in her voice might be laughable in any other situation. At least that, she truly hadn’t seemed to know.

Yaz nods.

“No,” she breathes, “you… you can’t have been…”

“I was,” Yaz snaps shortly.

Another pause.

“So… the first time we -” She cuts off again, and Yaz hears her swallow. “That was your first time… ever?”

Another nod.

She looks down at her hands and Yaz watches the confused look on her face slowly turn horrified, and guesses she’s remembering coming away with blood-coated fingers.

Silence follows, and Yaz stars down at the bed as the seconds tick past.

“Oh Yaz,” the Doctor suddenly breathes, and Yaz snaps her head up when she notices her moving closer to her. She reaches for her but Yaz moves back, shaking her head. “Yaz, I didn’t - I didn’t know,” she breathes, shaking her own head, her eyes wide and horrified. “I swear I didn’t know - why didn’t you tell me!?”

Yaz snorts. “Would it have changed anything?”

“Yes! It changes everything!”

Yaz stares at her for a minute before she shifts on the bed, shuffling a bit further away and looking down to finally button her shirt back up with shaky hands. “Whatever Doctor,” she mumbles as she does so. “It’s done now. Can’t go changing it back.”

“No I suppose we can’t,” The Doctor replies quietly, her voice remorseful.

Another long pause, and then the Doctor seems to realise what else she’d said.

“I… the daleks… I - left you… tied up?”

“Yeah,” Yaz says, looking up at her again and swallowing hard. “Yeah you did.”

She frowns, shaking her head. “No, I wouldn’t - I was sure I - how didn’t I…” Her eyes meet Yaz’s. “I’m sorry,” she finally breathes, and when Yaz risks a glance up she’s shocked to see tears in the Doctor’s eyes.

Yaz swallows. “It’s... okay - I know that was a difficult day for you -”

“No,” she cuts her off, shaking her head firmly. “I’m _sorry_. It’s not okay, and I’m so, so sorry Yaz.” Her gaze drops to Yaz’s wrists, raw and bruised and covered in dried blood from the ropes she’d struggled against in the jungle, and Yaz drops her own eyes, tugging her sleeves down as she nods tensely.

She jumps a bit when she finds the Doctor crawling onto the bed with her, but all she does is gently take her hands in her own and pull them onto her lap, rolling up her sleeves carefully to inspect the marks.

“Nothing I can do will ever make up for how I’ve hurt you,” she says quietly. “But will you let me take care of this?”

After a pause, Yaz nods, and lets the Doctor tug her to her feet. She hands her the rest of her clothes wordlessly, and Yaz dresses in silence, cheeks pink as she feels the Doctor’s eyes on her. She follows her to the Tardis’s med bay afterwards, and perches carefully on the edge of the bed there, watching quietly as the Doctor goes through cupboards and brings up a screen, scanning through lists and selecting what she wants before retrieving it from the little drawers that pop open.

Yaz hisses when she gently takes the first wrist and a wet cloth and starts cleaning it carefully with pink liquid.

“Rope burn is the _worst,_ ” the Doctor says after a moment of tense silence. “I once had a logerphant on the end of a rope, I was _trying_ to help its owner lead him out of a swamp -”

“A _what?_ ” Yaz can’t help but blurt out.

“A logerphant. They’re a bit like what you’d imagine a cross between a tiger and rhinoceros would look like. On a bad day. Anyway, they can be really aggressive but they’re also absolutely terrified of butterflies, and just as we got to the gateway one flew past and - well. It took off in the other direction pretty fast. I was determined not to let go and basically got dragged on my belly about two hundred feet through a stinky swamp before I got caught on a log and it ripped the rope right through my hands.”

Yaz hisses at the thought, but can’t help but giggle of the image of the Doctor flat on her stomach being dragged through a swamp by a huge lumbering creature.

“You wouldn’t have been laughing if it was you with swamp gunk in your hair for a week,” she says, but she’s smiling when she glances up at her. “There,” she says, one wrist clean, and reaches for a tube of cream. “This probably going to sting but it’ll be worth it - heals open skin wounds like this right up in a few hours.” Yaz nods, biting her lip as the Doctor applies the cream to her raw wrist. She repeats with the other wrist, chattering on softly in a way that eases all the tension from between them, until she finishes, dropping a kiss to her wrist before moving to put everything away.

“That should do it,” she says as she tidies, “I can’t do anything about the bruises but heat should help so maybe soak in a hot bath or something.”

Yaz nods, looking down at her wrists, already noticeably less angry looking. Her skin tingles where her lips had touched it, and she folds her hands in her lap, biting her lip as she watches the Doctor clearing away quietly.

When she turns back to Yaz with a smile on her face, it falls immediately.

“Why are you crying?” She looks dismayed, and Yaz hadn’t even realised that she was. She sniffs, wiping at a tear as it slips down her cheek.

“I’m crying because… because now I know I have to leave. And I don’t want to… I love this life - travelling with you, and Ryan and Graham....”

“No!” The Doctor is shaking her head frantically, crossing the room to where Yaz sits and taking her hands. “No, you don’t have to - you don’t have to leave Yaz.”

She looks up at her warily. “You… don’t want me to?”

“No,” the Doctor reaches up and brushes away a tear with her thumb. “Never.”

“But… how do we go on after this?” She starts to pull her hands away, shaking her head, “Because I don’t think I can… do this with you anymore - I mean when we -“

“No,” the Doctor holds tightly to her, squeezing her hands. “I won’t hurt you anymore Yaz. I’ll never touch you again if that’s what you want… I promise…”

Yaz looks down, another tear slipping down her cheek. “I don’t know if that’s what I want either,” she says sadly.

“But that’s what you need,” she hears the Doctor whisper, and then she leans in and presses a gentle kiss to her cheek before she pulls back, taking her hands from Yaz’s and stepping back.

“I want you to stay,” she tells her. “Please stay. I’m going to give you some space… to think.”

Yaz nods, sniffing hard. She already knows what her answer will be.

“Doctor,” she halts her as she gets to the door and she turns back to look at her. Yaz sniffs again. “You know… I’m still glad it was you. I’m glad you were my first. And... I still love you.” The Doctors face is unreadable, she opens and closes her mouth a few times before she nods tensely.

“I _do_ love you too Yaz, just not -”

“I know,” she says quickly, not wanting to hear it out loud. It was something, she supposed, her foolish heart beating faster at hearing the words, that the Doctor loved her in some way, even if it wasn’t the way she hoped.

She gives another nod and disappears.

\--

She stays; of course she stays. She thanks her boss for the offer of the promotion but tells him she’s not ready yet. She can’t leave the Doctor when she’s suddenly staring at her almost every minute with wide eyes that look so heartbreakingly lost.  

It’s… strained at first, between her and the Doctor, but she keeps her word, keeping her distance from Yaz.

She’s grateful at first, that the Doctor is giving her the space she needs to come to terms with what had happened between them. It still hurts, and she still feels horribly betrayed when she thinks about the way the Doctor had used her feelings for her to suit her own purposes… but she knows that she hadn’t done it deliberately to hurt her, and that beneath it all the Doctor seemed to just hold on to an aching desperation to be loved. It’s that that Yaz clings to, that stops her hating her whenever she starts thinking about it too deeply.

Yaz knows it’s good, the space between them, and the fact that what had been happening between them for the last few months has stopped, she _knows_ that’s what’s best… but she misses it. She misses feeling the Doctor close, misses her mouth on her neck and her fingers inside her, misses the way she could make her feel like she was burning up like a supernova… and she knows that stopping is what’s best for her, but she can’t help but worry that it isn’t for the Doctor.

She takes them to new planet after new planet, each adventure more adrenalin filled than the last - they ski down the lost mountains of Jazaar, and run from angry pink-skinned aliens with bones for hair on the moon of Lon. She takes them to the actual lost city of Atlantis, a thousand miles below the sea and they fight an angry hoard of aliens that resemble mermaids (the Doctor claims it’s where the myth came from) with glowing white skin and haunting black eyes.

Graham sits out the trip to the Alkatropz rainforest, where they jump from rainbow cliffs so high they’re up in the clouds, trusting that the water miles below would break their fall like the Doctor says. It does, of course, and Yaz and Ryan are laughing with delight when they surface, Yaz’s whole body alive and thrumming with adrenalin.

“Come on then!” The Doctor yells manically as she swims to the edge, “There’s another jump just over there - and this one has a _waterfall!”_

Inevitably though, their streak of good luck ends, and when the Doctor explains what the cybermen they’re facing used to be, Yaz feels a chill right to her bones.

It’s messy, and scary, and Ryan only just escapes being made into one of the monstrous machines himself. He does escape though - they all do, and the Doctor gets the entire city clear of the things, but is silent and tense as they walk back to the Tardis, and when she reaches to shove her key in the door Yaz notices her hand shaking.

She feels a flutter in her stomach as she follows the Doctor inside, watching her carefully as she moves around the console, slamming down levers and pressing buttons so hard the Tardis whines in protest.

“Uh… you alright?” Ryan speaks up.

She nods.

“I’m glad you’re okay Ryan,” she says quietly, not looking at any of them. “I thought…” she licks her lips. “I lost someone once. To cybermen,” she says quickly.

“Oh, Doc,” Graham says. “That’s awful - I’m so sorry.”

“Still,” she finally looks up at them and Yaz recognises that the bright smile on her face is false. “We’re all okay now right?”

When the boys leave seeking some well-needed rest, Yaz isn’t surprised when the the Doctor whirls and backs Yaz into one of the decorate patterned walls on the edge of the room. She is breathing fast as she looks down into her eyes, her gaze clouded but intense, a wild glint to her eyes shining through the sorrow Yaz can see there. Her heart speeds up, heat noticeably pooling between her legs in a way that makes her swallow, and she tilts her head up and looks the Doctor back in the eye as she places one hand on the wall either side of Yazs head.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Yaz says softly.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she replies quickly.

“What do you want?” Yaz breathes, her heart speeding up as the Doctor presses herself closer.

She glances down at Yaz’s lips and she feels her breath catch in her throat. She wants to give in… she really does. Every nerve ending in her body is tingling and screaming for her touch and her heart is aching to sooth the pain in the Doctor’s eyes.

But - “Doctor,” she says quietly. “You promised…”

“Just once,” she utters hoarsely, eyeing her mouth. “Just once more…” Her hearts are beating frantically against Yaz’s chest and her eyes are deep with sorrow.

She bites her lip, hesitating, her own heart pounding hard.

“Please Yaz,” she begs, a desperate edge to her voice as she cups her face in her hands and brings her forehead to hers. It burns against her own. “Yaz, my Yaz… baby, please…”

Her heart melting at the term of endearment she’d never head leave her lips before, Yaz lifts a trembling hand to her - but stops herself, shaking her head and pulling back.

“I can’t. I can’t Doctor.”

“Yaz _please,_ ” she whispers, “I need you…”

 _Oh god is she crying?_ Everything in Yaz gives in at the sight of the tears in the Doctor’s eyes, and then she’s pulling her close, nodding frantically.

“I’m here. I’m here. What do you need?”

“You,” The Doctor says, clutching at her desperately, drawing her a kiss, her hands already tugging at clothing, “just you…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before everyone screams at me for this last bit - there’s one more chapter! Please don’t murder me (or the Doctor) for this yet 😬
> 
> I really hope it isn't becoming too confusing, and that the way Yaz is reacting to everything and the way she feels makes sense. I have surprised myself a bit with just how dark this has turned out but it's the most inspired to write I've felt in a long time, and the response has been amazing so far and I can't thank you guys enough... ❤️
> 
> Please let me know what you thought of the chapter!


	6. Chapter 6

The Doctor’s thigh between hers and her teeth on her neck, Yaz shudders against the wall, the orgasm taking her by surprise but taking her fully, coaxing a hoarse cry from her parted lips. The Doctor comes a moment later, her small hand pressed over Yasmin’s own inside her trousers, the grunt muffled in her neck with another bite that makes Yaz hiss sharply.

She kisses her again, hands fisted tightly in her hair, already half pulled from its ponytail, and then takes her by the hand and leads her through the Tardis corridors to her bedroom.

“I love you,” Yaz whispers when the Doctor lays her back naked on her bed, and she sees something flicker through her eyes that looks like regret… but it’s masked so thickly with lust that Yaz forgets when she leans down to kiss her so deeply her whole body feels like it’s melting.

She’s dug out the toy she’s used on Yaz before, telling her quietly the first time how she sometimes still felt a dysphoric sense of disconnection to herself in this new form, and that moments of intimacy when everything was so very different were when it was strongest. Yaz had been eager to help take that away best she could.

But to Yaz’s surprise she helps her into it instead of securing it to herself, then crawls up over her and sinks down on it with her eyes locked on Yasmin’s own.

“God,” Yaz breathes, the sight taking her breath away, “you’re so beautiful…”

“Tell me again,” she utters, a little desperation in her voice

Having never known the Doctor to be vain, she lifts a hand to her face a little confused, but repeats the words; “You’re beautiful.”

She shakes her head quickly. “Not that.”

_Oh._

She swallows. “I love you.”

The Doctor moans in response, eyes fluttering shut as she begins to move atop her and Yaz feels a wave of emotion as she gazes up at her, here and with her and real and yet so seemingly unreachable.  

She looks alien and bare and beautiful as she rides her, one of her hands squeezing Yaz’s breast, the other cupped to her own, back arched and nipple caught between her thumb and forefinger. She sinks down, taking her further inside, almost all the way and the noise she makes has an edge of pain to it, her brow furrowing.

“Doctor -“ Yaz say, worriedly gripping her hips.

“I’m okay,” she replies, jaw set, breath coming fast, “I want it to hurt.”

Yaz doesn’t know what to say to that, so instead she simply lets go of her hips, allowing her to move, watching with lips parted, mesmerised as she fucks herself on top of her, her cries growing in volume and movements becoming progressively more frantic.

“I love you,” she tells her again when they are done, when the Doctor has discarded the toy and collapsed onto her back beside Yaz, panting and sweating and looking about as beautiful as she ever had. It feels so good to finally say the words freely; they’d been kept so tightly sealed behind her lips in moments like these for so long. The Doctor turns her head to meet her eyes, and she swallows visibly.

“I know you do,” she whispers, reaching out for Yaz and letting her crawl into her arms.

_Why won’t you love me back?_ She wants to cry - but she will never force that guilt onto the Doctor; what right does she have, to ask a being such as she to love a mere human anyway?

“Are you okay?” She whispers to her instead, and feels the Doctor nod before she shifts a little beneath her, her hearts beating quicker under her ear.

“Get some sleep,” she says softly.

Yaz pauses, wonders if she’s misunderstood - “here?”

“Yeah,” she replies, dragging sweat-damp sheets up over them, and Yaz feels her heart quicken, hope blossoming as she settles herself in the Doctor’s arms, barely resisting the urge to clutch at her tightly lest she disappear from beneath her.

“Yaz?” She says quietly after a moment.

“Yeah?”

“You know this still doesn’t mean… what I said after that first time… it all still stands. I can’t -”

“I know,” she replies quickly. And she did - she’d known, really, just hoped foolishly, perhaps stupidly that this time might be different. They don’t speak again, and Yaz only finds sleep when exhaustion finally takes her.

\--

The Doctor stays long after Yaz has fallen asleep draped over her.

The ancient timelord lifts a hand to her companion’s head, and watches the sleeping human’s dark locks slide through her fingers as she strokes them gently through her hair.

_Perfectly at peace._

The crinkle in her forehead has smoothed out with her slumber, but the Doctor knows it had been there, just as sure as she can still feel the slight dampness of her cheek as it rests on her chest from tears that both had pretended hadn’t fallen after Yaz had curled into her. It had broken both of her ancient hearts.

_Falling in love with a human_.

It had been a long time since she’d let that happen, and after the last she’d sworn never again. Funnily enough, this time it had been and taken hold, settling itself quite contentedly in the centre of her very being before she even noticed it approaching. She supposes that’s what happens when one stops paying attention to everything but oneself.

The irony is that she hadn’t even realised it until what had been between them had gone.

At first she’d thought it was just the sex she missed, that wonderful closeness and secure feeling Yaz could provide, holding someone in her arms who adored her so completely. Her love had been intoxicating ever since she’d recognised it, and the Doctor had become like an addict, craving the high only Yasmin Khan could give her.

She knew the human woman had fallen in love with her fast… it had happened enough times for the Doctor to recognise the look in her eyes, the way she obeyed her so easily, giving her everything she asked for without a second thought. Humans were so very prone to loving too easily and completely, and she knew that was what drew her to them. A being such as herself, who’d lived through so much loss and heartache and torment in her long life needed people around her who reminded her why she kept going. The wonder in their eyes was infectious and allowed her to see the universe for the amazing place it was over and over, and when that wonder focused on her… well, who could help but be enthralled?

She’d known it was wrong to keep using Yasmin the way she had when she was aware she was probably causing her to fall deeper into a fantasy that could never be each time. But Yaz had seemed to hold it well. She opened her arms so willingly to her each time and never asked for more of her which made it so easy to simply take only what she needed. She’d been sure to leave swiftly after each time, lest Yaz start to believe it meant more than it did… and Yaz had seemed fine with it. If she hadn’t wanted to do it, she wouldn’t have kept coming back, she’d reasoned. It’s not like the Doctor ever forced Yaz to do anything she didn’t want - she would _never._ Which is why it came as such a shock to learn how much it had been damaging her young companion on the inside. She’d thought… foolishly (arrogantly, perhaps) that as in love with the Doctor as she was, Yaz was likely just glad for any circumstance that meant she got to be close to her.

But she had come to understand… that all Yasmin Kahn ever wanted was to be whatever the Doctor asked of her. Needed. Wanted. She loved selflessly in that way. Completely.

It was a type of love the Doctor had never been capable of.

She had felt sick for days after it had all come out, nauseous in the very pit of her stomach, at first half-convinced it was a bug which was weird because her biology wasn’t usually prone to picking them up. Then one night, when she sat beneath the console, yanking out wires irritably, unable to stop thinking about the look on Yaz’s face when she’d been captured by the cannibals, knowing now why the usually so level headed police officer had panicked at being restrained, she realised it was guilt.

She’d done that to her. And that was only the tip of the torment she’d caused her. Once identified, the feeling only grew as she thought back on everything that had passed between them over the last couple of months, and what made it worse was that Yaz had been totally inexperienced in intimate relationships. The Doctor hadn’t known she’d been a virgin; had she… well, she likes to think she would have stayed away from her - she’d certainly have tried. But with Yaz so obviously adoring and blatantly eager to give her whatever she asked for she knows she likely would have broken eventually. At least if she’d known, she’d have been more careful. She winces when she thinks of how she’d taken her that first time, lost to anguish and fury at herself - she knows she’d been rough, and quick… and Yaz had just taken it. She’d taken everything she gave her with barely a whimper, and the Doctor feels disgusted with herself when she recognises the heat that’s pooling between her legs at the thought.

God, maybe she knew she was hurting her, somewhere deep down, maybe _that’s_ what she truly needed, and that horrifying thought is one best left pushed back down where it had come from.

She’d accepted her guilt over the situation. But the unsettled feeling inside her didn’t fade, and every time she looked at Yaz and found her anxiously watching her, or looking down at her hands with that little frown she kept seeing, her face so painfully sad and lost, the Doctor felt both of her own hearts ache. She ran, and ran, tried to bury it all with adrenaline and excitement but it didn’t help. And finally, when the cybermen had attacked and everything had almost gone to hell and she’d almost _lost_ Ryan just like before, and then all those memories were screaming in her head and…

She _knew_ she shouldn’t, but through a haze of sorrow and heartache where the beating of Yasmin’s heart against her chest was the only light bright enough to illuminate the suffocating darkness inside her head, she was too weak to refuse its pull.

It’s only now that she lays with her in her arms, hating herself vehemently for hurting her again that she’s able to understand what everything meant.

The Doctor had fallen for Yasmin Khan. Totally, inexorably, and she knows now what she needs to do.

\--

“Ryan told me about the promotion at work you turned down.”

Yaz blinks at her from the other side of her front door, pyjama-clad and bleary-eyed, clearly not long woken up.

“He what?”

The Doctor shifts on her feet, hands shoved nervously into her pockets. “Can I come in?”

Yaz glances behind her into the dark flat. “It’s six in the morning Doctor… everyone’s asleep.”

“Oh. Is that early?”

“Yes,” she rolls her eyes with a sigh, and steps outside her flat into the hallway with her, closing the door softly behind her. She folds her arms around herself, shivering a little in the cool morning air, goosebumps arising on her bare arms, nipples pebbling through her thin pyjama top.

The Doctor snaps her eyes back up to her face.

“I spoke to someone I know. Called in a favour. That job’s still waiting for you if you want it.

“I don’t,” Yaz frowns. “And you had no right to -”

“I know. I wasn’t - interfering, or anything. I just… didn’t want you missing out on something because of me. You should take it, Yaz.”

Yaz stares at her. “You want me to leave.”

“No,” she says quickly, shaking her head, “No, I don’t. I want the opposite. That’s why... “ she looks down   “Why you shouldn’t stay. With me. What I want isn’t good for you.”

“I think I can decide for myself what’s good for me,” Yaz replies primly.

“No, Yaz… I’m not so sure you can.”

“What do you mean?” She says after a tense pause. “You show up here calling me at the crack of dawn after I haven’t seen you for two weeks and now you’re telling me I can’t travel with you anymore -”  
“That’s not -” She cuts off, giving a frustrated sound. “Yaz… I’ve hurt you,” she admits. “And if you stay with me... I’m going to keep hurting you.”

“Then don’t,” Yaz frowns.

She sighs, shoulders slumping as she tries to figure how to put this. She notices Yaz shivering a bit and shrugs out of her coat, draping it round the smaller girl’s shoulders.

“Thanks…” Yaz says, looking up at her suspiciously. She would be wary too, if she were her.

“It’s not that simple. I don’t… I’ve never _meant_ to hurt you -”

“I know that Doctor. I never believed that you did.”

“But even after I realised…” she lifts a hand to Yaz’s face, and can’t help but step in a little closer. “I can’t keep away from you.”

“So you’re sending me away completely?” Yaz says, and looks like she wants to cry.

“No.” She drops her hand and steps back with a huff, shoving it instead through her hair. “This is not coming out how I meant it to.”

“Then tell me what you mean.”

“I just want what’s best for you Yaz. And I don’t think that’s me.”

“So you think it’s this? Sheffield… the police? Living my whole life here?” She shakes her head. “Because I don’t know if that’s what I want, Doctor.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I don’t know.” She looks away, arms wrapped tightly round herself. “This job… this life here. It never felt like it was enough _before_ I met you. Now… after travelling with you and seeing and doing all those amazing things - how do you think it feels?”

“So… you really don’t want the job?” She tries to squash down the hope that sprouts inside her.

“I don’t _know_.” She looks up into her eyes. “Can’t things just… stay the same for now?”

“The same?”

Yaz blushes and looks away.

“Oh,” she says, “You mean -”

“I didn’t, not really,” She replies quickly, avoiding the Doctor’s eyes. “But… if that’s what it takes…”

She stares at her. “What it takes?”

“To let me stay with you,” she mumbles, and the Doctor feels her hearts ache.

“Yaz,” she breathes, shaking her head. “You don’t owe me anything, and you never will.”

“It’s not about owing you Doctor,” she says, letting that hang between them. _It’s about loving you_ , she doesn’t say, but they both know it’s what she means. “I don’t want to leave,” she says after a moment, a desperate edge to her voice.

“And I won’t make you. Not if that’s truly not what you want. But please - think about it Yaz. Talk to your boss. Don’t mess up your life for a fool with an old blue box she can’t control.”

Yaz smiles a bit then, even though she looks sad. “I think that’s the first time you’ve ever admitted you can’t control it.”

“I’ll deny it if you ever tell,” she smiles tentatively back.

Yaz gives a sigh, smile fading, and then nods. “I’ll think about it.” She shrugs out of her coat and hands it back and the Doctor takes it with a nod, throwing it back on as she turns to leave.

“Doctor!”

Yaz looks nervous as she turns back to face her, and she tilts her head curiously. “Yeah?”

“Can I ask for one thing before you go?”

“Of course,” she’s nodding, moving back towards her.

Yaz licks her lips and looks boldly up into her eyes. “Kiss me?”

Her hearts speed up, and she takes a step back, shaking her head. “That’s probably not… a good idea Yaz…”

“Doctor, I _know_. I know you don’t feel the same way for me as I do for you. That’s not what I’m asking, all I want is -”

She cuts her off, unable to look at her standing there so open and wanting for another moment, thrusting her hands into her hair and crashing her lips down on her own, sending her stumbling back into the closed door of her flat, her back meeting it with a thump.

Yaz gives a soft noise of want and clings to the front of the Doctor’s coat, mouth already open beneath her own and body melting against hers in that incredible way it always does. She presses herself against her, tilting her head to better angle her mouth against Yasmin’s own, knee wedging itself between her thighs and pressing up, firm enough to make her moan into the kiss, as her hands move from her face down her neck and over her chest, slipping beneath the hem of her pyjama top and up to squeeze her breast in her hand.

She massages it as she kisses her, and Yaz groans into her mouth, low and hoarse and wanting, and she pulls her closer with one arm around her back, the other moving from her chest downwards, fingers slipping beneath the waistband of Yaz’s cotton pyjamas -

“Wait,” Yaz pulls back from her to gasp. “Not here Doctor…”

“Why?” She murmurs, dark eyes searching hers as her fingers dip into slick heat. She watches Yaz’s eyelids flutter as she strokes her middle finger over her clit, revels in the gasp that tumbles from her open mouth.

“Because...”

She presses up a little harder when Yaz trails off, a smirk coming to her lips. “Because…?

Yaz yelps as they both suddenly plummet backwards, the door gone from behind her back, and her hands cling to the Doctor’s coat as she goes, taking her with her and landing them both sprawled on the floor of the hallway in Yaz’s flat.

“What the _actual_ fuck?”

“Sonya!” Yaz squeaks from beneath her.  

The Doctor’s hand is still caught down the front of Yaz’s pyjama bottoms and she yanks it out hurriedly, scrambling to her feet as Yaz does the same, tugging at her clothes and cursing softly.

“Oh my _god_ ,” Sonya is saying, “You are _so_ lucky I’m not mum. Were you actually -!?”

“Sonya! Shut up!” Yaz hisses, worriedly glancing down the hallway into the flat.

Sonya glances between them and folds her arms. “I knew she was your girlfriend.”

“She’s not -” She cuts off, spinning her sister round and giving her a shove in the direction of inside. “Will you just piss off!” She hisses, “It’s none of your business.”

“Um, I just caught you fucking in the hallway, so actually it is -”

Taking the Doctor by the hand and dragging her back outside, Yaz shuts the front door on her sister’s taunts.

“Sorry,” Yaz winces.

“Yeah,” the Doctor rubs the back of her neck awkwardly, letting out a shaky laugh. “Right outside your flat probably wasn’t the best place to ask me to kiss you…”

She hears Yaz inhale sharply, and when she glances up she’s frowning at her. “Well you probably should have stopped when I told you to.”

She blinks, startled. “What?”

“I said…” She takes a breath, as if gathering her courage; “I said we shouldn’t do that here.”

“You didn’t exactly _feel_ like you were protesting -”

“Are you serious!?”

“...Yes?” She shakes her head, brow furrowed as Yaz stares at her with her mouth open. “I thought you wanted me to carry on?”

“Doctor, what part of ‘not here’ means carry on!?”

She shakes her head, confused. “The part where you’re soaking wet for me?” She frowns as Yaz’s jaw drops open. “You could have pushed me away if you wanted me to stop - don’t blame it on me just because you’re embarrassed your sister saw us -”

She cuts off, and both of them gasp and spin round as the door swings open again.

“What in the _hell_ is going on out here!?” Najia demands, sleepy-eyed and very annoyed looking. “It’s six am! Doctor!? - Mind explaining?”

“Uhhh,” she looks to Yaz who simply frowns back at her. She swallows. “Nothing. Nothing’s going on. I … forgot my coat. Just came by to pick it up. I’ll just… - go.”

“Maybe call round at a more sociable hour next time you forget something?”

“Will do,” she nods quickly, eyes finding Yaz’s briefly. “...Think about what I said?”

Yaz nods tensely and she nods back before she spins on her heel and hurries away.

“Were you fighting?” She hears Najia ask Yaz as she walks quickly down the hallway.

_“No,_ mum -”

“Lover’s tiff.”

“Piss off Sonya!”

“Yasmin! Language please…”

The door closes on their voices and the Doctor swallows down the uneasy feeling in her gut.

—

“There you are!” She greets her companions as the Tardis door swings open later that week. “Was beginning to think you’d stood me up,” she grins. It fades from her face when the door shuts behind Graham.

She looks between he and Ryan. “Where’s Yaz?”

They glance at each other.

“She’s not coming Doctor,” Ryan replies after a pause, and her stomach sinks.

Maybe - “Is she sick?” She shouldn’t hope for such a thing, but -

“No. She’s fine,” says Graham, and Ryan clears his throat, stepping up to the console.

“Yeah, she… she’s just started in her new position, at work. And she said to say sorry but she couldn’t make it.”

“Oh,” she feels her stomach sink a little more. She was _glad._ She was happy for Yaz - she deserved that job. The Doctor _wanted_ her to take it. It just stings a little that she couldn’t even come by herself to -

“Actually, she said she’s probably not gonna be able to make it for a while… I guess she’s pretty busy, you know.”

He and Graham glance at each other again, and she knows the dismay must be visible on her face. She looks down, nodding.

“Oh. Okay. Yeah, that’s fine. Good for her. I’m glad… that she’s busy,” she mumbles.

_This was best for Yaz._ She knew that. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hell.

“Maybe we should take a rain check on today, eh Doc?” Graham pipes up, his voice gentle.

“What? No! Don’t be daft. Got the trip of a lifetime planned,” she forces a grin, firing up the engines. “Hold on boys,” she says, darting round the console, “Oh - and I hope you’ve brought your rain macs!”

—

Days turn into weeks and weeks into months. Every time she lands in Sheffield a foolish piece of hope bubbles inside her… only to fade into disappointment each time her Tardis doors open and only two figures pass through.

She’s glad for Yaz, truly she is. She knows getting away from her is what was best for her. She hates that she’d hurt her so much and wishes she could take it all back, wishes she’d never touched her and ruined a perfectly good friendship… but sometimes in the quiet depths of night when only the hum of the Tardis accompanies her thoughts, she wishes she’d begged her to stay.

She, Ryan and Graham have an easy sort of friendship, playful banter flying between them as they travel and fight monsters and save planets. She runs on autopilot, doing what she’d always done, but something is missing without Yaz, a little piece of her fam gone. Sometimes, inevitably, they don’t save the day, too late or not able to do enough, and those are the times she misses Yaz the most.

She asks about her sometimes (tries not to ask every time) and always gets the same vague sort of answer; “Oh yeah she’s great, doing really well at work…”

She tells herself she’s happy she’s doing well and tries to shove down the selfish hope that she would hate it and come running back to her. Every time only two people enter the Tardis, she tells herself she is glad.

Until one day, there are three, and suddenly she can admit that nothing over the last three and half months has ever been _enough_.

“Yaz!”

“Hi,” She sounds tentative, wary as she steps on board, flanked by Ryan. The door closes behind her and she remains by it, gloved hands wringing in front of her.

“You’re here,” The Doctor says dumbly, unable to stop staring at her.

“Yeah. I am.” She takes another step inside. “Thought I’d… join you guys on a trip. Ryan said you were going to a planet where the rocks were made of diamonds and the earth sparkled. And that sounded too cool to miss. If… that’s alright?”

“Of course it is! Of course it’s alright it’s very alright, as alright as it could be in fact -“

“Too much,” Ryan leans in to mutter and she snaps her mouth shut.

“Glad it’s alright,” Yaz smiles, a little amusement on her face as she steps up to the console.

She smiles back, hearts thrumming, and flips the lever.

—

It isn’t alright.

They land two hundred years out and the diamond cliffs are gone, replaced with tanks and soldiers and walls six feet high lined with barbed wire. _Humans._ Of course. Humans had arrived here and seen only profit in the planet’s beauty, cutting up the cliffs and mountains into blocks to be shipped off for sale and slaughtering the natives who defended their planet fiercely. She tries to make peace, almost gets herself killed in the process and actually _does_ get one of the planet’s leaders killed, a public execution to spite her attempts, followed by a battle that’s more of a slaughter, the plains outside the city’s walls littered with bodies and the stench of death by the time she gets there.

“I’m too late,” she whispers, staring in horror at the smoking battlefield. She hears Yaz step up behind her, and wishes she wasn’t still here, wishes she’d gone with Ryan and Graham back to the villages where she wouldn’t have been able to see the extent of her failure.

“You tried, Doctor,” Yaz says softly, hand on her arm.

“I failed,” she utters.

“But you _tried_. Some things… just can’t be fixed.”

She turns to face Yaz, her lips parted as she stares at her.

“Can we?” The Doctor is blurting out before she can stop herself.

Yaz’s eyes widen and she opens her mouth as if to reply then closes it again and shakes her head, a little frown on her face, “I don’t… what?”

“I’ve missed you,” she tells her, too weak in that moment not to.

Yaz stares at her, eyes flickering down to her lips and back up quickly, but not fast enough for her to miss. “Really?”

She nods. _Don’t leave me again,_ she wants to beg, and quickly looks away from her eyes, turning away to face the horrors in front of her in anguish. “I’m lost without you.”

Yaz pauses, makes to move forwards then stops, until she finally steps close and reaches out to place her hand on the Doctor’s arm.

“I don’t want you to be lost,” she hears Yaz say, and when she turns to glance at her, Yaz steps forward and grabs her face in her hands, hauling her into a messy kiss.

“Yaz,” she gasps when the younger girl tugs her down onto the dirt with her, pinning her quickly beneath her. “What are you doing?”

“Making it better,” Yaz murmurs, dragging her tshirt from her trousers and shoving her hand down the front of them as she leans in to kiss the Doctor’s neck. She blinks up at the sky, tinged red with the setting suns, her mouth open as she feels Yasmin’s small fingers slip between her legs, press against her clit and make her hips jump.

Her eyelids flutter shut and she wraps her arms tightly round her.

It’s quick and rough and everything the Doctor needs in that moment, and when she’s come she turns her head and fists her hand in Yaz’s hair, pulling her mouth to her and kissing her hard as she rolls her beneath her. She strips her bare right there on the battlefield, and Yaz’s legs part willingly when her fingers press between them.

“Stop me,” she begs, “Tell me to stop. Tell me you don’t want me anymore.”

Yaz shakes her head. “No,” she says stubbornly, “I won’t. Because I’ll always want you, Doctor.”

“But look around,” she says desperately, on the verge of tears, “all I do is destroy…” she pushes two fingers into Yaz, drawing the most beautiful sound from her. “I’ll destroy you too,” she warns.

“You didn’t - cause this,” she gasps out, small hands fisted in the Doctor’s coat. “You only tried to help…”

“I made it worse,” she says through gritted teeth.

“This time, maybe,” Yaz says quietly, pushing her hand into the Doctor’s hair and looking up at her with soft eyes. “But not every time.”

She can’t bear to look into her eyes, so open and honest while the Doctor takes a little more from her any longer, and hides her face in her neck, mouthing at her skin as she works another finger into her. Yaz mewls and gasps and rakes her nails down the Doctor’s back as she fucks her, one leg curled over her hip and her head thrown back in the dirt. She feels perfect when she comes, her body tightening and quivering around her fingers and her cries sharp and pleasure-filled by her ear. The Doctor slides down her body afterwards, still craving _more_ , and makes her come apart again with her mouth, Yaz’s hands so tight in her hair this time it makes her eyes water.

They are both panting when it’s over, Yaz’s body trembling lightly as she kisses up over her hip and stomach, and presses her face into her.

“Stay with me,” she whispers into her skin.

She feels Yaz give a shudder beneath her. “I can’t.”

She lifts her head, looking up into her eyes. “Yaz, stay with me,” she begs.

She shakes her head sadly. “I can’t Doctor,” she repeats.

The Doctor crawls up to rest over her, her body covering Yasmin’s bare one, hand coming to rest on her cheek. Her skin is flushed, her face smudged with dirt from her hands and hair pulled half loose from its plait.

She looks beautiful. She looks like something the Doctor never wants to let go.

“Tell me you’ve been happy,” she demands.

“What?”

“Your new job? Tell me… it’s everything you want.”

Yaz looks away. “It’s good,” she says after a pause.

“But it isn’t everything,” the Doctor finishes. “You’re too good for Sheffield,” she tells her after a moment, and Yaz takes a deep shaky breath.

“I can’t stay with you Doctor,” she tells her quietly, voice sad. “This…” she swallows and looks down, eyes fixed on her neck instead of her face. “I love you too much. I’d lose myself if I stayed.”

The Doctor’s eyes soften and her hearts leap in her chest. “You still love me,” she breathes.

“Of course I do. Love doesn’t go away.”

_She loves her._ If someone like Yasmin Khan could love her… then she must have some good in her. She leans down and kisses her then, mouth hot and urgent against Yaz’s, and she _needs_ her, and she doesn’t know how she’d coped without her these past months and doesn’t think she can do it again, and Yaz… She meant what she said; Sheffield doesn’t deserve her. Yaz deserves so much more than wasting her life working for the law in a little city on twenty-first century earth - she deserves the universe, and everything in it… and that’s what the Doctor can give her. Yaz needs her as much as she does Yaz; Yaz _loves_ her... and she loves her too and she won’t let her go again.

So she does the only thing she can think to; she moves her mouth to Yasmin’s ear, and utters four words that ensure she never leaves her again -

_ “I love you too.” _

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew. Sorry this chapter took so long - I struggled with a long time with how to end this. I had three alternate endings I kept switching between since the start, and I wrote about six ‘last scenes’... and rewrote them, and rewrote them, until finally just deciding to post it like this and be done with it, because I'm probably never going to be completely happy with an ending. To be clear: this is in no way intended as a ‘happy ending’. And I do hope that’s very obvious. This story is meant to be raw and real and life doesn’t always have happy endings and people don’t always get out of situations that are bad for them, particularly when their vision is so clouded. I really hope you guys don’t hate that I decided to end it this way… it’s just the only way that felt like it fitted. 
> 
> Please please pleeease share your thoughts with me! I hadn’t originally been planning on switching to the Doctor’s pov for the last chapter but based on a lot of the comments I’ve received I really felt it needed to be done in order to basically show the story from the other side, and hopefully make clear why she’d done a lot of the things she had. None of it is meant to be ‘justifying’ her actions, it’s just offered as a glimpse into what’s inside her head. So I really hope it worked and it doesn't feel weird and out of place with the rest of the fic.
> 
> Thank you… thank you thank you for sticking with me through this one, particularly those who have offered thoughts and comments on each chapter, I appreciate it so very much. It’s been as tough to write as it probably was to read and honestly I feel pretty emotionally drained after that haha… but I hope you liked it. Much love to you all and something very soft and fluffy will be on the way to make up for this! ;)


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